[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] Gwangju Center for Creative Economy and Innovation announced on the 30th that it held the ‘June 2022 Gwangju Startup Forum’ at the Kim Dae-jung Convention Center on the 29th.
This forum was a large-scale startup forum attended by about 500 local startups, prospective entrepreneurs interested in startups, practitioners from startup support-related organizations, and investors, providing an opportunity for communication to foster the local startup ecosystem.
The forum, held to expand the base for activating the Gwangju regional startup ecosystem and investment, featured lectures such as ▲Current status and activation plans for startup investment (Ahn Young-il, Director of TIPS Town) ▲Activation plans for the local startup ecosystem (Ko Young-ha, Chairman of Korea Angel Investment Association) ▲Company builder-type accelerating strategy plans (Ha Sang-yong, Director of Gwangju Center for Creative Economy and Innovation) ▲Living as a startup in the region (Jang Ha-joon, CEO of Cheomdan Lab Co., Ltd.).
Additionally, the Gwangju Creative Economy Center celebrated a meaningful moment as it was selected as the first TIPS operator in the Honam region.
TIPS (Tech Incubator Program for Startup) is a program where private investment companies discover and invest in startup companies first, then recommend them to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, which supports technology development (R&D), startup commercialization funds, and more through separate selection evaluations.
For companies supported by TIPS, if the operator makes a pre-investment of 100 million to 200 million KRW, the government matches and supports up to 900 million KRW (up to 500 million KRW for R&D, up to 100 million KRW for startup commercialization, up to 100 million KRW for overseas marketing, and up to 200 million KRW for angel matching funds).
Since its establishment, the Gwangju Creative Economy Center has established a full-cycle accelerating (nurturing) system for company growth as a company builder-type accelerator, from discovering companies to global expansion, and has discovered and nurtured 366 companies as of 2022.
A company builder-type accelerator refers to a professional startup planner who supports the entire growth cycle of promising technology startups from ▲business item selection ▲team building ▲pivoting ▲investment attraction ▲direct investment to EXIT, and the Gwangju Innovation Center plans to make various efforts to revitalize the Gwangju startup ecosystem starting with this TIPS operator selection.
Moreover, the Gwangju Creative Economy Center has secured a budget for forming investment funds to activate the local investment ecosystem and has regularly promoted the Gwangju Startup Forum. It has also held various investment attraction programs, including the “Fun Fund Investment Attraction IR,” to support excellent startups.
Director Ha Sang-yong said, “This Gwangju Startup Forum is meaningful in that it was organized and operated centered on entrepreneurs,” and added, “We will continue to provide wholehearted support so that it can become a sustainable Gwangju Startup Forum where investors seeking to discover good companies come by setting and operating topics that meet the needs of startup companies.”
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