349,300 shares allocated to employee stock ownership plan fully subscribed at KRW 5.24 billion; shares subject to one-year lockup under Korean labor law
Institutional demand ratio of 1,196.1-to-1; voluntary lockup commitment rate of 78.2% — highest in KOSDAQ IPO history; retail subscription ratio of 2,807.8-to-1; KRW 13.9 trillion in retail deposit — largest in South Korea in 2026
Unanimous conviction across institutional investors, retail participants, and employees validates MakinaRocks’ position as the defining Physical AI company for factories and battlefields
SEOUL, South Korea, May 14, 2026 — MakinaRocks, South Korea’s leading Physical AI company, said Thursday that employees had fully subscribed their allocation in the company’s initial public offering, ahead of a planned listing on the KOSDAQ exchange next week.
The employee stock ownership plan covered 349,300 shares — 13.26 percent of the total offering, valued at approximately KRW 5.24 billion (USD 3.8 million) — and was taken up in full. Under South Korean labor law, those shares are subject to a one-year lockup period.
The complete employee takeup is notable for what it represents: the employees who work most closely with the company’s technology chose to put their own money behind it. Industry observers have described the result as a direct bet on the company’s future growth — particularly unusual given that MakinaRocks allocated 13.26 percent of its offering to employees, a higher share than is typical among recently listed Korean AI companies.
The employee participation capped an IPO that drew strong demand across all three investor groups. During the institutional book-building period from April 28 to May 6, the offering attracted 2,427 domestic and international investors and a demand ratio of 1,196.1-to-1. More significantly, 78.2 percent of subscribed shares came with a voluntary lockup commitment of 15 days or longer — the highest rate in KOSDAQ IPO history. The offering price was set at KRW 15,000 per share, the top of the indicative range.
The public offering period, held May 11 and 12, recorded a subscription ratio of 2,807.8-to-1 across 546,153 individual applications, generating approximately KRW 13.87 trillion — roughly USD 10.1 billion — in subscription deposits, the largest retail IPO deposit total in South Korea so far in 2026.
MakinaRocks develops and deploys AI for mission-critical industrial environments. Its core product, an enterprise AI operating system called Runway, is used in automotive, semiconductor, energy, battery, and defense industries. The company said revenue grew at an average annual rate of approximately 84 percent between 2018 and 2025. New order intake in the first quarter of 2026 reached KRW 7.5 billion, roughly USD 5.4 million, up 2.8 times from KRW 2.7 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Proceeds from the offering will be directed toward further development of the Runway platform and international expansion, with Japan serving as the company’s initial overseas market.
“The full subscription of our employee allocation means something beyond the numbers,” a company spokesperson said. “These are the people who build this technology and witness its potential on the front lines of industry every single day — and they chose to invest in what they see. As we move forward from this IPO, our goal is clear: to become the irreplaceable Physical AI company for factories and battlefields worldwide.”
