PER, EPS, PBR and BPS are calculated in-house from the last 4 quarters (2025Q3–2026Q2) · Dividend yield is based on ₩0 per share · Prices as of the 2026-10-02 close
Openknowl runs the AI-based recruitment-matching platform 'Mini Internship' as its core business but has expanded scale through manufacturing-subsidiary acquisitions, and in the first half of 2026 it posted an operating profit turnaround alongside a rising share of platform revenue.
2025 consolidated revenue rose sharply to KRW 88.27 billion, but the company swung to an operating loss of KRW 2.76 billion and an owners' net loss of KRW 6.50 billion.
The company stated that first-half 2026 operating profit reached a record high for a first half.
The revenue share of the core platform business, including Mini Internship, has been expanding, reducing dependence on manufacturing-subsidiary sales.
In the second quarter of 2026 the company posted an operating profit yet still recorded an owners' net loss, highlighting volatility in non-operating items.
The company is expanding into the physical AI and robotics sector, pursuing a 'Robot Intern' vision and partnerships with robotics firms.
Openknowl was founded in 2012 and listed on KOSDAQ in June 2023 under the technology growth special listing track as an HR-tech company.
Its core service is the online-offline recruitment matching platform 'Mini Internship,' which supports job seekers in proving their practical competencies through real corporate project assignments to secure employment.
The company has accumulated more than 50,000 project performance records and 13,000 hiring outcome data points, which it uses in its talent-matching algorithms.
Revenue is categorized into platform, education consulting, other services, and applied software development and supply, with a significant portion of platform revenue coming from packaged services for public institutions.
In 2023 the company acquired Sangsangwoori, which expanded its services toward middle-aged and senior users, and CK Info, aimed at upgrading its AI services.
In November 2024 it acquired Hyundai IT, a maker of electronic whiteboards and digital signage that exports products to more than 30 countries including the United States, France, and Japan, bringing a manufacturing business into the group.
In November 2025 subsidiary Hyundai IT absorbed CK Info through a merger, with an effective date of December 30, integrating overlapping organizations.
While such M&A has rapidly expanded the company's scale, market observers have also noted that its identity as a technology platform company has become overshadowed by manufacturing-driven revenue.
More recently, the company has declared a 'Robot Intern' vision that extends the Mini Internship model into robotics and deep-tech workforce training, alongside a push into the physical AI and AI-transformation (AX) business.
| Quarter | Revenue | Operating profit | Op. margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025Q2 | ₩14.6B | -₩1.5B | −10.3% |
| 2025Q3 | ₩25.7B | ₩1.3B | 5.0% |
| 2025Q4 | ₩22.6B | -₩3.1B | −13.6% |
| 2026Q1 | ₩22.1B | ₩1B | 4.5% |
| 2026Q2 | ₩17.7B | ₩700M | 4.2% |
| Year | Revenue | Operating profit | Net income (parent) | Op. margin | ROE | Debt-to-equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | ₩16.3B | ₩700M | -₩600M | 4.2% | −2.7% | 44.4% |
| 2023 | ₩25.1B | ₩1.3B | ₩1.4B | 5.4% | 3.8% | 21.4% |
| 2024 | ₩50.8B | ₩100M | ₩1.3B | 0.2% | 3.3% | 82.5% |
| 2025 | ₩88.3B | -₩2.8B | -₩6.5B | −3.1% | −18.8% | 89.3% |
Consolidated basis (financial statements including subsidiaries) · Final figures from DART filings · Net income attributable to owners of the parent · Data as of 2026-09-05
Looking at annual results, the company maintained a profitable trend from revenue of KRW 16.27 billion and operating profit of KRW 685 million in 2022 to revenue of KRW 25.14 billion and operating profit of KRW 1.35 billion in 2023.
In 2024, the effect of the Hyundai IT acquisition more than doubled revenue to KRW 50.77 billion, but operating profit was only KRW 101 million, sharply lowering the margin.
In 2025, revenue expanded further to KRW 88.27 billion, yet the company swung to an operating loss of KRW 2.76 billion and an owners' net loss of KRW 6.50 billion; notably, the third quarter of 2025 posted an operating profit of KRW 1.29 billion, only for the fourth quarter to show an operating loss of KRW 3.08 billion and an owners' net loss of KRW 5.85 billion, a loss magnitude that expanded even more at the net-income level than at the operating level, suggesting a significant impact from non-operating items.
Moving into 2026, the first quarter turned profitable with an operating profit of KRW 997 million and an owners' net profit of KRW 551 million, and the second quarter recorded an operating profit of KRW 738 million but an owners' net loss of KRW 1.39 billion, again diverging in direction between operating and net income.
Over the trailing four quarters (Q3 2025 through Q2 2026), the combined owners' net result remains roughly negative KRW 6.15 billion, still in loss territory.
On the cash-flow side, 2025 operating cash flow was a positive KRW 1.91 billion despite the net loss, indicating a gap between reported losses and actual cash generation.
The debt ratio rose sharply from 21.4% in 2023 to 82.5% in 2024 and 89.3% in 2025, reflecting financing and liabilities tied to M&A and subsidiary consolidation.
The domestic recruitment market continues to shift from periodic mass hiring to rolling recruitment, and from credential-based screening to competency-based evaluation, alongside a long-term rise in job turnover rates.
Within this trend, Openknowl competes with players such as WantedLab, Saramin, and Incruit through its differentiated matching model based on practical project assessments.
The company has stated that it is expanding its role as a 'privately led work-experience platform' in line with the government's expanded youth employment support policy, and a substantial portion of its business is understood to come from public institutions and local governments.
More recently, in response to the shift in the global AI industry's center of gravity from generative AI toward 'physical AI' combined with robotics and autonomous driving, the company has broadened into new businesses, including participating as part of a consortium in a physical-AI-related project overseen by Gyeonggi Province.
Its digital signage and electronic whiteboard manufacturing subsidiary has a stable export base covering more than 30 countries including the United States, France, and Japan, but as this manufacturing revenue has grown as a share of the total, market commentary has also emerged suggesting that the company's identity as the technology-platform firm that originally listed under the special track has become blurred.
The physical AI and robotics sector has recently drawn growing attention on the domestic stock market, with a string of IPOs and partnership announcements among related companies, and Openknowl's Robot Intern business is being evaluated within that broader trend.
In its first-half 2026 earnings announcement, the company stated it would continue profitability-focused management in the second half based on the order momentum it had secured.
Cumulative first-half orders reached KRW 63.8 billion, up 12% year over year, and the order backlog rose 41% to KRW 24.7 billion, cited as indicators that could support revenue recognition in the second half.
The company explained that cost-efficiency effects from the merger between Hyundai IT and CK Info at the end of last year are expected to continue contributing to profitability improvement quarter by quarter.
For new business, the company plans to fully pursue AX talent development and entry into the physical AI market based on physical-AI infrastructure construction and operation projects won in the first half, and stated it would strengthen partnerships with domestic robotics and cloud companies to this end.
In practice, in June 2026 it signed an agreement with robotics automation firm Bigwave Robotics for cooperation on physical AI infrastructure and talent development, and plans to expand services linking robot-adoption consulting with workforce supply.
However, these new businesses remain at an early stage, and the timing and scale of their meaningful contribution to revenue will need to be confirmed through future quarterly disclosures.
In addition, whether the company achieves its stated target of KRW 100 billion in revenue this year, and the composition of that revenue between platform and manufacturing, are likely to be key variables in gauging the quality of future earnings.
The current share price stands below the company's net asset value per share, meaning the stock trades at a discount to its book value in the market.
This can be interpreted as reflecting the 2025 swing to a net loss, the rise in the debt ratio, and the earnings volatility seen in the diverging directions of operating and net income. The company currently pays no dividend, making it difficult to frame investment appeal in terms of dividend yield.
Whether the discount to net asset value narrows will be worth watching if the operating-profit turnaround seen in the first half of 2026 and the rising platform revenue share continue, while a renewed widening of non-operating losses could keep the discount in place or deepen it.
Ultimately, valuation is likely to hinge on whether the swing from loss to profit continues stably on a quarterly basis, and on the quality of that profit—specifically whether the gap between operating and net income narrows.
PER, EPS, PBR and BPS are all calculated in-house (the same method as Naver and Toss) · Dividend yield = cash dividend per share from DART filings (supplemented by KRX) ÷ current price · As of 2026-09-05
The platform business's share of revenue expanded from 24.5% in the first half of 2025 to 35.8% in the first half of 2026, reducing dependence on subsidiary revenue. This can be read as a signal of the company recovering the platform-company identity it presented at its technology-special listing. The order backlog also grew 41% over the same period, laying groundwork for future revenue recognition.
The merger between subsidiaries Hyundai IT and CK Info at the end of 2025 curbed overlapping personnel and shared administrative costs, reducing first-half 2026 SG&A expenses by 3.2% year over year.
The company stated it expects this effect to keep contributing to profitability improvement quarter after quarter, and first-half operating profit did in fact reach a record high for a first half.
Openknowl has declared a 'Robot Intern' vision extending its Mini Internship model into robotics and deep-tech workforce training, and signed an infrastructure and talent-development partnership with robotics automation firm Bigwave Robotics.
It is also participating as part of a consortium in a physical-AI-related project overseen by Gyeonggi Province. Amid growing interest in the physical AI theme on the domestic stock market, the company continues attempts at related business diversification.
While the Hyundai IT acquisition pushed revenue past KRW 80 billion, the relatively slower growth of core platform revenue has drawn criticism that the company's identity as a technology firm has weakened.
Some market observers point to this shift in business structure as a background factor behind subdued investor sentiment despite revenue growth. If the platform revenue share were to contract again, this concern could resurface.
In both the fourth quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, the direction of operating income diverged from owners' net income, or the loss magnitude expanded further at the net-income level.
This points to significant volatility in non-operating items and suggests that an operating profit may not necessarily translate directly into a net profit going forward. Operating profit alone appears insufficient for judging the quality of earnings.
The debt ratio rose more than fourfold, from 21.4% in 2023 to 89.3% in 2025. This reflects financing tied to M&A and liabilities brought in through subsidiary consolidation, which could translate into interest burden or constrained financial flexibility going forward.
Owners' equity also shrank from KRW 41.22 billion in 2024 to KRW 34.64 billion in 2025, indicating a weakening capital base.
Because heterogeneous businesses—platform, education consulting, and manufacturing (digital signage)—coexist within a single company, questions about valuation coherence could grow if cross-segment synergies fail to materialize as expected.
The earnings contribution of acquired subsidiaries can vary quarter to quarter, leaving relatively low visibility into future results.
The debt ratio has risen sharply over a short period, and the company has a history of using convertible bonds to fund M&A, raising the possibility of dilution concerns or higher interest expense if it seeks additional funding. In periods of continued net losses, pressure to raise capital could further constrain financial flexibility.
Openknowl listed under the technology-growth special track and was granted grace periods for the revenue and pre-tax loss requirements; as these grace periods expire in sequence, meeting the underlying requirements going forward is directly tied to the risk of being designated an administrative issue. The recurring annual net losses of recent years could make satisfying these requirements more difficult.
Check the Q3 quarterly report for changes in the platform-versus-manufacturing revenue mix and whether the gap between operating and net income recurs.
Confirm whether the company's stated annual revenue target of KRW 100 billion is met and assess the composition of that revenue to gauge earnings quality.
Check progress and any concrete revenue recognition from the Bigwave Robotics partnership and the Gyeonggi Province physical AI consortium project.
Review the FY2026 annual business report (audit report) for whether the company achieved a full-year profit and whether it meets listing-maintenance requirements.
Openknowl is a company where the identity of a technology-special-listed AI recruitment-matching platform coexists with scale expansion driven by an acquired digital signage manufacturing subsidiary. 2025 was a year in which revenue grew substantially yet the company swung to an operating and net loss, while the first half of 2026 saw operating profit reach a record high for a first half on the back of merger effects and SG&A cost reduction.
However, the recurring divergence between operating and net income direction on a quarterly basis means that whether the apparent improvement in operating results translates directly into net income improvement needs to be confirmed through future quarterly results.
The sharp rise in the debt ratio and the decline in owners' equity are points worth watching from a financial-stability perspective, and the expiration of grace periods tied to listing-maintenance requirements is another variable to monitor.
At the same time, the expanding platform revenue share and the push into physical AI and the Robot Intern business can be viewed as an attempt by the company to recover its original identity as a technology firm.
Ahead of any investment decision, it is necessary to check upcoming quarterly disclosures, whether the annual target is met, and the actual revenue contribution of new businesses.
Report written 2026-09-05 · Data as of 2026-09-04
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