The archive · Commerce & Marketplaces · Strategic decision · 2016–2026
Jeongyukkak's ₩90B grocery bet: a fresh-meat star ends in liquidation
Korea's ultra-fresh meat platform bet on buying ₩90B Chorok Maeul with a ₩150B round that never filled; losses led to court rehab, then 2026 liquidation.
Jeongyukkak (정육각)
What the business is
Jeongyukkak (정육각) was a South Korean fresh-food e-commerce platform selling meat, eggs and meal kits online: orders triggered production, and its own logistics delivered meat slaughtered within days, same-day or pre-dawn.
Starting capital：About ₩70B raised from venture investors including Mirae Asset Venture Investment, Stonebridge Ventures, Atinum Investment and Capstone Partners (KAIST Alumni/viva100). To fund the ₩90B Chorok Maeul acquisition it planned a ₩150B Series D; the deteriorating market left the round far short, and in October 2022 it bridged with a ₩32B three-month Shinhan Capital loan, later pledging its Gimpo smart-factory headquarters as collateral (MoneyToday, 2023-02-06).
How it started
Kim Jaeyeon, a KAIST applied-mathematics graduate, founded Jeongyukkak in 2016 after seeing how many days and middlemen stood between slaughter and dinner. The startup compressed that chain, stamped dates on its meat and eggs, and sold direct with its own logistics and near-zero waste.
What happened
By 2020 revenue reached ₩16.2B and about ₩70B had come from leading Korean VCs. In 2022 Jeongyukkak agreed to buy Chorok Maeul from Daesang Group for about ₩90B — a chain of nearly 400 organic-grocery stores with more than 20 years of history but losses since 2018 — beating Market Kurly and Barogo, with E-Mart Every Day also weighing a bid. To pay, investors had promised a ₩150B Series D, but when the cash was needed the round had shrunk; Jeongyukkak took a ₩32B short-term loan from Shinhan Capital in October 2022 and later pledged its Gimpo headquarters as collateral when repayment slipped.
How it ended up
The acquisition never paid for itself: cumulative operating losses ran to ₩82.8B from 2021 through 2023 (Seoul Economic Daily). On July 4, 2025 Jeongyukkak and Chorok Maeul filed for court rehabilitation; the court granted commencement the same day while Jeongyukkak paused its own operations and Chorok Maeul kept trading. On August 21, 2026 Seoul Bankruptcy Court Division 18 terminated the procedure, ruling liquidation value exceeded going-concern value, and Jeongyukkak headed for liquidation (theBell).
Background
Jeongyukkak was founded in 2016 by Kim Jaeyeon, a KAIST applied-mathematics graduate, on a simple observation: meat passed through too many hands and too many days between slaughter and the consumer. His startup compressed that chain — slaughter date on the pack, lay date on the eggs, production started only when an order came in, and demand-forecast planning that kept waste near zero — and delivered direct, promising same-day or pre-dawn arrival of genuinely fresh meat.
The model earned real traction: ₩16.2B revenue by 2020 and about ₩70B from top Korean VCs. Then Jeongyukkak bet bigger, agreeing in 2022 to buy Chorok Maeul — a nearly 400-store organic-grocery chain owned by Daesang Group — for about ₩90B, beating rivals Market Kurly and Barogo. The purchase price assumed a ₩150B Series D that investors had promised, but markets deteriorated, the round never filled, and Jeongyukkak bridged the gap with a ₩32B short-term Shinhan Capital loan secured against its headquarters.
The math never recovered: Seoul Economic Daily put cumulative operating losses at ₩82.8B for 2021–2023. On July 4, 2025 Jeongyukkak and Chorok Maeul filed for court rehabilitation and the court granted commencement the same day; Jeongyukkak suspended its own operations while Chorok Maeul kept its stores and logistics running. About a year later, on August 21, 2026, Seoul Bankruptcy Court Division 18 terminated the procedure after judging liquidation value greater than going-concern value, sending one of Korea's most prominent food-tech startups into liquidation.
What has to be true
- The ₩90B price assumed a ₩150B follow-on round; when the funding market froze, the round closed far short and a ₩32B bridge loan against the company's headquarters filled the gap (MoneyToday).
- Chorok Maeul had lost money since 2018 — burdened by middle-distribution costs and no online channel — so it needed the very capital the failed round was supposed to supply (KAIST Alumni/viva100).
- Ultra-fresh own-logistics delivery was structurally expensive — ₩8B loss in 2020 and ₩24.9B in 2021 before the deal, ₩82.8B cumulative in 2021–2023 (MoneyToday, Seoul Economic Daily).
- Once in court, the group's liquidation value outweighed its going-concern value, so the judge chose winding down over a revival plan (theBell).
What can be applied
A growth acquisition priced on an equity round is a debt bet the day funding freezes: the ₩150B that was promised never arrived, and the bridge loan plus losses decided the end.
Aftermath
After the July 2025 rehabilitation filing, Chorok Maeul's nearly 400 stores, online mall and logistics kept operating while Jeongyukkak's own fresh-meat service was paused. When Seoul Bankruptcy Court Division 18 terminated the rehabilitation on August 21, 2026, theBell reported that creditors were pursuing an acquisition of Chorok Maeul while Jeongyukkak itself faced liquidation — roughly a year after the filing, and about two years after the ₩90B acquisition that was supposed to scale the company.
Sources
- 정육각·초록마을, 기업회생절차 개시 신청
- 초록마을 인수 2년만 정육각 회생 절차…법원은 개시 결정
- 매출 162억 스타트업 정육각이 900억원에 초록마을 인수한 배경은 - 김재연 동문 (수리)
- [단독]'320억 채무상환 초읽기' 정육각, 담보 잡힌 본사 어쩌나
- 정육각, 결국 회생절차 폐지…청산 수순
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