Elice IPO Faces Market's Cold Grip on AI Capital

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, Elice Group shares fell sharply on their market debut, despite retail investors placing roughly 10.3 trillion won in subscription deposits. The AI infrastructure company’s retail offering drew more than 400 times the shares available. Elice raised 201.1 billion won in its IPO, but Reuters reported that its shares opened at 75,700 won, 16% below the 90,500 won offering price, and last traded at 66,600 won, down 27%.

Retail Demand, Market Rejection

The Japan Times reported an even steeper early decline: shares dropped as much as 32% to 61,400 won. The paper said Elice raised 201 billion won, or $151 million, making it the bourse’s biggest IPO this year. Reuters put the amount at 201.1 billion won, or $151.12 million. Elice sold 2.22 million new shares at 90,500 won apiece, the top of its marketed price range. The Japan Times reported that Elice’s market capitalization exceeded 1 trillion won after listing, while the KOSDAQ index fell 1%.

The contrast was plain. Retail investors wanted shares, but trading quickly pushed the price down. Elice’s debut tested investor appetite for AI and data-center companies after an AI-led market selloff derailed some deals. Investors were weighing borrowing costs, competition and long-term returns from AI spending, The Japan Times reported. That month, Firmus Grid canceled its planned Sydney listing; CoreWeave shares had more than halved since their May peak; AirTrunk was delaying a planned IPO of a real estate investment trust, people familiar with the matter said; and Nscale faced pushback over its target IPO valuation.

“Elice's debut comes at a time when sentiment toward AI infrastructure companies has weakened, particularly in the U.S.,” said Albert Yong, managing partner and chief investment officer at Petra Capital Management. “Sentiment toward AI infrastructure has been highly volatile and often disconnected from underlying fundamentals.”

The Numbers Behind the Pitch

Elice’s prospectus showed first-half revenue climbing 200% to 34.4 billion won. The company reported an operating profit of 10.3 billion won, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose more than 11-fold to 23.2 billion won. Analyst Douglas Kim wrote in a Smartkarma note that Elice was expected to post an 83% sales jump in 2026 and an operating margin of about 33%.

“While it's a company that already posts operating profit with the AI cloud business and it plans to respond to private-sector demand with the IPO proceeds, it remains to be seen whether the company can maintain its current profitability,” said Kim Dojoon, chief executive officer at Zian Investment Management. He said CoreWeave may have weakened investor sentiment, but Elice’s financial structure was “quite different,” and he didn’t think investors needed to view the company as particularly risky.

Capital for Expansion

Three students in the doctorate program of KAIST founded Elice in 2015. The company started as a coding education platform, then shifted to AI cloud infrastructure. Its products include servers, liquid-cooled chips, cloud and networking equipment, and software. Elice also developed a modular data-center platform with high-density power systems and advanced liquid cooling for high-performance AI chip clusters.

Elice plans to use IPO proceeds to build more AI data centers in South Korea and abroad, Chief Executive Officer Jae Won Kim said. The listing came during a South Korean IPO drought: first-time listings in Seoul raised $1.4 billion in 2026, compared with more than $3 billion in each of the previous three years, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. Venture capital firms including Vertex Ventures and Altos Ventures back Elice. Mirae Asset Securities and Samsung Securities served as lead underwriters.

“We're going all-in on becoming a full-stack AI infrastructure leader globally,” Kim said in an interview. “This IPO is about giving ourselves the financial firepower to execute.” Elice raised the money by selling new shares, but those shares opened at 75,700 won, below their 90,500 won offering price.