Elice, a Seoul-based supplier of AI cloud infrastructure, had everything a hot listing needs: the biggest Korean IPO of 2026, a retail order book more than 400 times oversubscribed, and roughly 10.3 trillion won in subscription deposits from retail investors. None of it survived the opening bell. On Tuesday the stock fell as much as 32 percent in early Kosdaq trading, to about 61,400 won against an offer price of 90,500 won, putting it on track for the worst debut of any Korean IPO that raised at least $100 million.
The company sold 2.22 million new shares at 90,500 won, the top of its marketed range, raising 201 billion won (about $151 million) for a post-listing market capitalization above 1 trillion won. If the losses hold, the first-day drop would surpass the 30 percent plunge of W-Scope Chungju Plant in 2022 as the worst opening for a sizable Korean listing.
The mismatch between demand and price is the point. Elice pitched investors a business growing fast enough to justify optimism: first-half revenue up 200 percent to 34.4 billion won, a swing to an operating profit of 10.3 billion won, and EBITDA up more than 11-fold to 23.2 billion won. Analyst Douglas Kim of Smartkarma expects sales to grow 83 percent in 2026 with an operating margin around 33 percent. But the IPO priced at the very top of its range just as the market was repricing everything adjacent to AI data centers.
The backdrop is a string of retreats. CoreWeave shares have more than halved since their May peak and its bond spreads have widened into distressed territory. Firmus Grid cancelled a high-profile Sydney listing this month. AirTrunk is delaying a planned real estate investment trust IPO, and Nscale is facing investor pushback over its target valuation ahead of a listing. First-time listings in Seoul have raised about $1.4 billion in 2026, less than half the pace of each of the previous three years.
Founded in 2015 by three KAIST doctoral students, Elice began as a coding education platform before pivoting to AI infrastructure. It now sells servers, liquid-cooled chips, networking equipment and a modular data center platform with high-density power and advanced liquid cooling, backed by venture investors including Vertex Ventures and Altos Ventures. Chief executive Jae Won Kim said the proceeds will fund new data centers in Korea and abroad, describing the company as going all-in on becoming a full-stack AI infrastructure leader.
Investors who stayed away had a specific concern. Albert Yong of Petra Capital Management said sentiment toward AI infrastructure companies has weakened, particularly in the US, and has been highly volatile and often disconnected from fundamentals. Kim Dojoon of Zian Investment Management argued Elice deserves more benefit of the doubt than CoreWeave because its financial structure differs and it already posts operating profit, but conceded it remains to be seen whether current profitability holds.
The debut is also a warning for the broader pipeline. South Korea is examining whether the planned US IPO of SK Hynix unit Solidigm would count as a duplicate listing, and lawmakers are pushing for stronger protection of minority shareholders. If a company with 400-times retail demand and triple-digit revenue growth cannot hold its issue price on day one, the issuers queued behind it may need to reset their expectations before the market resets it for them.
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