Ministry of Science and ICT Selects 15 Companies Including Nota for 'ICT Unicorn Development Project'

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-seon] The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 19th that 15 companies, including the machine learning platform Nota and the ransomware email detection solution Secureter, were finally selected for the '2022 Global ICT Future Unicorn Nurturing Project.' The ICT Future Unicorn Nurturing Project is an initiative by the Ministry of Science and ICT to discover promising small and venture companies in the ICT convergence field with high global growth potential and nurture them into unicorn companies.

Launched for the first time in 2020, this project has selected and supported a total of 30 future unicorn companies, achieving results such as attracting 260.7 billion KRW in investment, 249 billion KRW in sales, creating 810 jobs, and filing/registering 450 patents.

This year’s call for applications attracted companies from various ICT fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), software (SW), and the Internet of Things (IoT). The Ministry of Science and ICT conducted a comprehensive evaluation of technological capability, growth potential, and overseas expansion capacity. Among ICT SMEs, companies that have received investments of 2 billion KRW or more from domestic or foreign institutional investors within the last three years since their establishment, or companies whose sales have increased by an average of 10% or more annually over the past three years, were eligible to apply.

The selected companies will receive support through public-private cooperation with related organizations such as the Ministry of Science and ICT, the National IT Industry Promotion Agency, the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund, the Korea Telecommunications Operators Association, the Born2Global Centre, and Seoul Guarantee Insurance, including credit guarantees, investment attraction linkage, performance guarantee insurance support, and overseas local incubation programs.

The Korea Credit Guarantee Fund will provide credit guarantees of up to 10 billion KRW over three years, the Korea Telecommunications Operators Association will offer venture capital (VC) investment opportunities through the Korea ICT Fund (KIF), and SGI Seoul Guarantee will support expanding the guarantee limit and premium discounts for companies’ performance guarantee insurance. Additionally, the Born2Global Centre (B2G) will strengthen pre-entry capabilities for overseas expansion through product-market fit (PMF) consultations.

Song Sang-hoon, Director of the Information and Communications Industry Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, "Domestic unicorn companies in the ICT sector account for 77.8% of all unicorn companies," adding, "Through this project, we will actively support promising companies in the information and communication technology field with potential to grow into future unicorns."