Selection of Final 20 Companies After Future Evaluations Including 5 Nationally Recommended Firms
Pre-Unicorn Special Guarantee Application Status by Distribution. [Table=Ministry of SMEs and Startups]
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Jong-hwa] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that a total of 50 companies applied for the 'Pre-Unicorn Special Guarantee,' which closed for applications on the 12th. Five companies were recommended through the national recommendation system, and among them, three companies made the final application.
The 'Pre-Unicorn Special Guarantee' is a core project of the government's 'K-Unicorn Project,' which aims to realize the four major venture nations. It plays an important role by providing seed funding to help pre-unicorns grow into unicorn companies.
The K-Unicorn Project is a public-private joint initiative to discover baby unicorns and nurture them as targets for private investment, supporting their growth into pre-unicorns with a corporate value of over 100 billion KRW. Subsequently, it establishes scale-up conditions that allow pre-unicorns to be properly evaluated domestically and internationally and to receive prompt investment to leap into unicorn status.
This year, the Pre-Unicorn Special Guarantee aims to discover 20 companies and support their growth into unicorn companies. Selected companies will be provided with special guarantees of up to 10 billion KRW per company for working capital required for technology development, global expansion, and more.
Regarding the application status by sector, the majority of applicants (72%) were non-face-to-face ventures and startups promoting the transition to a non-face-to-face economy amid the COVID-19 situation. Among the non-face-to-face sectors, the order was lifestyle brokerage platforms (18%), online promotion (10%), online consumer goods manufacturing and sales (6%), and logistics platforms (6%).
The average investment size of the applicant companies is 17.1 billion KRW. By investment size, companies with venture investment amounts of 10 billion KRW or more accounted for 36 out of 50 applicants (72%), indicating that companies entering the full-scale scale-up stage applied the most for the Pre-Unicorn Special Guarantee.
Applications will undergo eligibility review and document screening, followed by technology evaluation and guarantee screening by the Korea Technology Finance Corporation. Then, through a final evaluation committee composed of a national review panel and expert evaluators, the support recipients will be selected by the end of June.
Lee Ok-hyung, Director of the Venture Innovation Policy Division at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, "We appreciate the many promising ventures and startups leading innovative growth with innovative technology and bold investment who applied. As we select pre-unicorn companies that will lead the post-COVID-19 era, we will do our best to ensure that the best companies are selected strictly and fairly."
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