Seoul

WHEN mobile gaming firm Netmarble Games debuts on Friday, its founder Bang Jun-hyuk will be the only billionaire in South Korea's top-10 wealthiest stock holders with no ties to the chaebol, the mainly family-owned industrial conglomerates that dominate Asia's fourth-largest economy.

Mr Bang's is a rare Korean rags-to-riches story, and the high-school dropout with two business failures on his resume wants the state to revive support for startup companies and nurture a new crop of businesses as an alternative to the economy's dependence on the industrial might of groups including Samsung and Hyundai.