Daejeon City Selects 10 Companies to Participate in the 'D-Unicorn Project'

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Daejeon City has selected 10 companies to participate in the ‘2022 D-Unicorn Project.’

According to the city on the 30th, this project is primarily focused on selecting and supporting promising ventures and startups with the potential to grow into unicorn companies.

The goal is to promote scale-up by intensively supporting promising startups that have been verified for growth potential and market expansion, ultimately helping them leap into global unicorns.

A total of 45 regional venture and startup companies applied for this newly introduced project this year, recording a competition rate of 4.5 to 1.

The city conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the applicant companies based on the innovativeness of their technology, business feasibility, and growth potential, ultimately selecting 10 companies.

The list of selected promising companies includes six in the biomedical field: Plasmap Co., Ltd., Y-Biologics Co., Ltd., V-Pix Medical Co., Ltd., BioFriends Co., Ltd., Intocell Co., Ltd., and Revosketch Co., Ltd.; two in the wireless communication convergence field: Wontec Co., Ltd. and Livest Co., Ltd.; and two in the intelligent robotics field: Nota Co., Ltd. and Twiny Co., Ltd.

The average business duration of these companies is 8 years, and the amount of investment attracted is 23.8 billion KRW (at the Series B level), which is analyzed to be a significant amount of investment relative to their business duration and company size.

The city grants the selected companies a Unicorn Membership (for the first 3 years), a Unicorn Pass that allows priority participation in city support projects, and usage rights to the Unicorn Lounge, a business-exclusive space.

Additionally, to support new market research and analysis, technology development, etc., the city will provide leap support funds up to 65 million KRW and prioritize policy funds such as management stabilization funds and growth funds like the D-Innovation Growth Fund.

Im Muk, Director of the City’s Job and Economy Bureau, stated, “We will invest actively in scaling up companies by utilizing all available resources and will spare no support to help companies establish a growth foundation to ultimately leap into global unicorns.”