Korea's growth fund announced 1.6 trillion won of approvals on Thursday, and the money its own detail pages attribute to the state comes to 1.19 trillion

Two numbers describe the same seven decisions, and they are 410bn won apart.

South Korea's Financial Services Commission said the National Growth Fund's management council approved seven projects at a meeting on Thursday. The summary box on the first page of its release lists them in five lines: 350bn won for a Wonik Robotics plant, 220bn won for CJ 4DPLEX, a 560bn won loan to Doosan Tesna, a 300bn won loan to LG Energy Solution, and 170bn won of loans across three smaller firms. Those five add to 1.6 trillion won. That is the figure the release gives for the round.

The sections behind the summary attribute the money differently.

Of the 350bn won Wonik Robotics is raising, the Advanced Strategic Industries Fund is putting in 150bn won through convertible preferred shares, and 200bn won is coming from private investors including IMM Credit and Solutions. Of CJ 4DPLEX's 220bn won, the state fund is contributing 50bn won into a project fund run by Glenwood Credit and G and P Invest, with 170bn won from private financial firms. Woori Bank led that one and proposed it to the inter-ministry panel that screens candidates. Add up what the detail sections attribute to the state and the total is 1.19 trillion won, or 1.23 trillion won if the summary box's own figure for the last three loans is used instead.

Those last three do not agree with themselves. The summary calls them 170bn won together. The section behind it says TKG Solmics applied for 100bn won, Kyongbo Pharm for 20bn won and Samdong for 10bn won, which is 130bn won. The release does not reconcile the two, and it prints amounts applied for rather than amounts approved.

Where the year stands

The fund has now approved 17.9 trillion won across 31 items, against a target of 30 trillion won for 2026. Its regional share for January to August is 42.5 percent.

The four buckets are not filling at the same rate. Direct investment stands at 2.83 trillion won of a 3 trillion won allowance. Indirect investment stands at 1.59 trillion won of 7 trillion won. Infrastructure investment and lending is at 6.87 trillion won of 10 trillion won and low-interest lending at 6.59 trillion won of 10 trillion won. The commission addresses the gap itself, saying that once the blind funds due to close in the second half are counted, the 30 trillion won target may be exceeded.

The humanoid hand

The Wonik Robotics money is the one the release leads on, and the reasoning is set out at length.

Wonik Robotics was founded in April 2004, holds 45 registered or filed patents and makes the Allegro Hand, now in its sixth generation. It has been developing a dedicated artificial intelligence hand with Meta since 2024 and lists more than 180 research partners. The money builds a robot hand plant and an AX centre at Wanju in North Jeolla, and the company is valued at about 1.35 trillion won before the raise.

The commission's case for it is a bottleneck argument. Actuators and robot hands account for 70 percent of the hardware cost of a humanoid, it says, and the hand is the hard part because it needs precise manipulation, real-time tactile feedback, fine torque control and durability at once. It cites a Goldman Sachs forecast putting the global humanoid market at $1.2bn in 2024 and above $175.6bn by 2035, and says Korea makes about 1 percent of the world's humanoids today despite having among the highest robot densities anywhere.