Ministry of Science and ICT to Provide Tech Finance Support to 110 Software SMEs This Year

Announcement of Support Project on the 24th
Investment Consulting and Loan Guarantee Support

The Ministry of Science and ICT will announce the 'Support for Securing and Commercializing SW Technology Value' project on the 24th. The table shows detailed implementation plans.

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] The government’s liquidity support policy for small and medium-sized software companies, which have excellent technology but have faced difficulties obtaining loans from general banks, has been prepared again this year.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 23rd that it will announce the 'SW Technology Value Securing and Commercialization Support' project on the 24th to help small and medium-sized software (SW) companies commercialize their excellent software technologies.

Since 2015, the Ministry of Science and ICT has been providing technology finance services to these companies based on a software-specialized technology value evaluation model developed together with the National IT Industry Promotion Agency and the Korea Technology Finance Corporation.

This year, a total of 110 small and medium-sized software companies will be supported. Ten companies will receive technology value evaluations and investment attraction consulting as references for investment. One hundred companies will receive technology value evaluations for loan guarantees. Among the loan guarantee support targets, 35 companies will be fast-tracked using the Korea Technology Finance Corporation’s artificial intelligence (AI)-based patent evaluation system. The evaluation period will be shortened from 4 weeks to 1 week.

Technology finance services are corporate financing in the form of investment or loans that supply funds needed during the technology innovation process such as startup, research and development (R&D), and commercialization through technology value evaluation. Unlike general manufacturing industries that mainly have tangible assets, software companies have had difficulties using financial services because intangible technologies are hard to be recognized as assets.

From 2015 to 2020, the Ministry of Science and ICT issued investment reference reports for a total of 75 companies, with a total valuation amount reaching 53 billion KRW. From 2016 to 2020, loan guarantee certificates worth a total of 79 billion KRW were issued to 350 companies.

Kim Jeong-sam, Director of Software Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, "The core of the non-face-to-face society brought about by COVID-19 is software, and to enhance software competitiveness, it is necessary to actively support companies to liquidate their excellent technology assets." He added, "We will actively promote policies to foster excellent software and support a successful Digital New Deal."

Applications for the support project will be accepted through the National IT Industry Promotion Agency and the Korea Technology Finance Corporation. The investment support project (SW Technology Value Evaluation) will be open from the 24th of this month to the 12th of next month. The loan support project (SW IP Evaluation Guarantee and SW IP Fast Guarantee) will be accepted on an ongoing basis starting from the 24th.