Park Young-sun Launches K-City Venture and Startup Committee: "Seoul as a Cradle for Unicorn Companies"

"Growing as the Hub of Startups, the Sanctuary of Entrepreneurship, and the City of Venture Growth"

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] Park Young-sun, the Democratic Party of Korea's candidate for Seoul mayor, announced the launch of the 'K-City Venture & Startup Committee' and pledged to make Seoul a cradle for unicorn companies.

On the 17th, candidate Park stated, "I will make Seoul the center of startups, a sanctuary for startups, and a city of venture growth," announcing the establishment of the K-City Venture & Startup Committee. The chairman is former Venture Association president Ahn Geon-jun.

Park said, "One of the areas I devoted the most effort to as Minister of SMEs and Startups was ventures and startups, and to this end, I promoted the 'K-Unicorn Project.' We will discover and support baby unicorns?companies with innovative business models and growth potential valued under 100 billion KRW?and nurture them into prospective unicorns. We will actively support prospective unicorns to grow into unicorns (companies valued at over 1 trillion KRW)."

Photo by Park Young-sun Candidate Camp Provided

In addition to Chairman Ahn, the K-City Venture & Startup Committee includes Yoo Jung-beom, CEO of Mesh Korea; Kim Yoo-jin, CEO of SparkLabs; Yoo Ho-hyun, CEO of OxoPolitics; representatives from eight prospective unicorn companies; and representatives from seventeen baby unicorn companies.

In the morning, they visited the Venture Business Association in Guro-gu and held a meeting to discuss current issues and policy tasks for venture business innovation.

At the meeting, candidate Park announced, "I will elevate Seoul to an innovative venture megacity and make it the cradle of Korean ventures where world-class unicorn companies can be born."

Park emphasized, "The key words for Seoul's development are venture, innovation, and global. Building a specialized venture company and innovative venture ecosystem to invigorate the economy is the great transformation of Seoul."

She also said, "Despite the difficulties posed by COVID-19, Seoul ranked first as a 'Global Innovation City.' Based on Seoul's competitiveness in innovation, potential, and global capabilities, we must continue Seoul's innovative growth momentum."