Shares of Lablup, a South Korean developer of software that manages artificial intelligence chips, closed their first day on the Kosdaq market on Nov. 3 at 14,220 won, 25.16% below the 19,000-won initial public offering price, according to Korea Exchange data reported by NEWSTOP. The stock had climbed as high as 28,350 won, up 49.21%, before sellers took over and pushed it to a low of 13,310 won.

The swing wiped about 69.7 billion won (roughly $47 million) off the company's value in a single session, leaving it at about 207.1 billion won at the close against 276.8 billion won at the offer price. For investors across Asia who have chased AI-related listings this year, the debut is a reminder that a hot theme does not guarantee a first-day pop, especially when pricing demand is already thin.

Lablup IPO drew weak demand before the debut

The warning signs came during pricing. Lablup lowered its indicative range from 20,000 to 23,000 won to 19,000 to 22,000 won and then priced at the bottom, NEWSTOP reported. Of the 1,129 institutional bids, 49% came in below the floor of the range. Retail investors subscribed just 3.55 times the shares available, with deposits of about 18.4 billion won.

The Elec, which covered the pricing on Oct. 27, put the institutional bookbuilding ratio at 284.53 to 1 and said foreign institutions ordered about 55.59 million shares. That headline ratio looked healthy, but the price sensitivity inside the book told a different story. The company raised 41.4 billion won.

Lockups were light. About 87.3% of the institutional allocation carried no mandatory holding commitment, and trading volume reached 37.32 million shares on day one, about 7.2 times the float available right after listing, according to NEWSTOP. More stock comes free over the next three months: 160,000 committed institutional shares after 15 days, 754,678 shares held by existing shareholders after one month and 807,315 shares after three months.

What Lablup sells, and the valuation case

Lablup's main product is Backend.AI, a platform that allocates graphics processors and other AI accelerators and supports model training, inference and deployment. The Elec reported that it runs at more than 120 sites in Korea and abroad, and Chief Executive Shin Jung-kyu has compared its role to that of Windows on a personal computer.

The business is small. Revenue was 6.7 billion won in 2025, with an operating profit of about 600 million won and a net loss of 1.5 billion won, according to The Elec. First-half 2026 revenue rose 58.2% from a year earlier to about 4.8 billion won. Overseas sales were only 2.4% of the first-half total, NEWSTOP reported.

The offer valuation leaned heavily on the future. The valuation, as described by The Elec, projected revenue rising to 57.8 billion won in 2029 and net profit of 21.1 billion won that year, discounted back to the present and multiplied by an average price-to-earnings ratio of 33.6 drawn from Wisenut, Suresofttech and Nutanix. After pricing, the 2029 net profit estimate was trimmed, according to NEWSTOP, and the company expects a net loss of about $1.5 million this year. Lablup has said it will spend half the proceeds on AI accelerator hardware for technology validation and the rest on expansion, mainly in the U.S. and Japan.

Lablup is not the only Korean AI-linked newcomer to stumble. Elice Group, which listed on Oct. 20, closed its first day 37.02% below its 90,500-won offer price, NEWSTOP reported.

Korea IPO calendar stays crowded despite weaker returns

The poor debut comes in one of the busiest weeks of the year for Korean offerings. NEWSTOP counted 13 companies listing, taking public subscriptions or running institutional bookbuilding in the first week of November, all on the Kosdaq.

Demand is uneven. Ship energy equipment maker Youngkwang listed on Nov. 2 after pricing at the top of its range with institutional demand of 1,000.1 to 1 and about 3.29 trillion won of public subscription deposits. Electrostatic chuck maker EST followed on Nov. 4, also priced at the top. Auto parts supplier Dongwon Parts drew an 840.9-to-1 public subscription ratio, while BaroPharm priced at the bottom of its range and Nex-I priced below its range altogether.

Investors have turned more selective on price. In the third quarter, 11 of 16 bookbuilding companies, or 68.8%, priced at or above the top of their ranges, NEWSTOP reported, a share that has fallen every quarter since reaching 100% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Of nine regular October offerings, five were trading below their offer prices as of the Oct. 30 close.

The broader Korean market has been volatile as well, with the Kospi rebounding after a selloff tied to AI debt worries. The next tests for the Kosdaq pipeline are close: AL Robot takes retail subscriptions on Nov. 6 and Nov. 9, and carbon materials maker J&TG finishes institutional bookbuilding on Nov. 9 for an offering of up to 137.2 billion won. Lablup's first lockup release, the 160,000 committed institutional shares, falls 15 days after its listing.