Many Companies Selected in Future Promising Fields Such as ICT, AI, and Bio
Support Including 300 Million KRW Market Development Funds, Special Guarantees, Policy Funds, and R&D
[Asia Economy Reporter Kwak Minjae] On the 2nd, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that it has selected 60 promising small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the potential to grow into Korea's representative unicorn companies as Baby Unicorns.
The 'Baby Unicorn 200 Nurturing Project' is a program that discovers promising startup companies with innovative business models and proven growth potential, nurturing them into prospective unicorn companies (with a corporate value of over 100 billion KRW).
So far, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups has selected and supported a total of 100 Baby Unicorns, including 40 companies in 2020 and 60 companies in 2021. The participating companies have shown excellent results, with employment nearly doubling (up 91.4%) and sales increasing 2.5 times (up 149.6%).
This year, 284 SMEs applied, showing a competition rate of 4.7:1. On May 25, through the final presentation evaluation involving 50 professional judges and 70 public judges, the innovation of technology and the potential for growth into unicorn companies were thoroughly assessed, resulting in the selection of 60 Baby Unicorns.
The average business age of the 60 finally selected companies was 5.1 years, with average sales of 4.64 billion KRW and an average employment of 35.9 people.
Among the selected companies, half (46.9%, 28 companies) were excellent companies with AA grade or higher in the technology and business evaluation by the Korea Technology Finance Corporation. The average amount of investment attracted was 3.82 billion KRW.
By industry, 27 companies (45.0%) were in the information and communication field and data, network, and artificial intelligence-based platform sectors, and 16 companies (26.7%) were in the bio and health sectors, indicating that many companies in future promising fields were selected.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups provides up to 300 million KRW in new market pioneering funds to the selected Baby Unicorns, and additionally, they can receive special guarantees (up to 5 billion KRW), policy funds (up to 10 billion KRW), and preferential treatment when participating in the Ministry’s R&D projects. Especially this year, in addition to existing linked support, various linked projects such as overseas expansion support, broadcast advertising support, youth employment incentives, and ESG management introduction support have been added to provide richer support to Baby Unicorns.
The Ministry plans to select and support an additional 40 companies in the second half of the year following the selection of these 60 Baby Unicorns.
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