Why Kosdaq Debutante Elice Is Also Drawing Wall Street Attention

Limit-Up Rebound After First-Day Plunge

"A Barometer of AI Investor Sentiment"

Elice, a neocloud company that became a symbol of weakening artificial intelligence investor sentiment after its shares plunged more than 30% from the IPO price on its Kosdaq debut, rebounded just a day later. With expectations and concerns over investment in AI infrastructure colliding, Elice's stock is emerging as a gauge of AI sentiment for the time being.

On Oct. 21, Elice surged 29.92% to 79,900 won on the Kosdaq market. The previous day, its first day of trading, the stock closed at 61,500 won, down 32.04% from its IPO price of 90,500 won, deepening concern before jumping to the daily limit the next session. Elice was founded in 2015 by three people from a KAIST laboratory. It initially grew through coding and AI education platform businesses, but its mainstay is now GPU cloud operations. At the IPO price, its market capitalization stood at 1.0054 trillion won, making it this year's largest Kosdaq listing.

But after the stock tumbled on its first trading day, major international media outlets turned their attention to Elice. The Financial Times wrote that Elice's poor debut came as semiconductor stocks continued to be sold off amid concerns over the sustainability of AI investment in South Korea's stock market. It grouped the company with the withdrawn IPO of Australian data center operator Firmus, which counts Nvidia as an investor, and the sharp decline in shares of U.S. neocloud company CoreWeave.

Elice's sharp swings reflect the tug of war between bullish and bearish views on AI profitability, the report said. Although the stock hit the daily upper limit on Oct. 21, it still remains below its IPO price. CoreWeave, which recently stoked concerns over global AI fundraising, fell 11.91% on Oct. 16, trimmed its loss to 0.44% on Oct. 19 and rose 1.65% on Oct. 20.

Lee Sun-a, Hankyung.com reporter suna@hankyung.com