KIPO Announces Recruitment of Participants for the 'Intellectual Property Startup Competition'

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) is recruiting companies to participate in this year’s ‘Intellectual Property Startup Competition.’

On the 14th, KIPO announced that from the 15th of this month to the 31st of next month, it will recruit companies to participate in the competition together with the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund, the Banks Foundation for Young Entrepreneurs, and the Korea Invention Promotion Association.

The competition serves as a preliminary round granting entry to the finals of the ‘2024 Challenge! K-Startup,’ aiming to discover early-stage startups with high growth potential and support their commercialization.

Challenge! K-Startup is a collaborative effort among 10 government ministries including the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and KIPO. It consists of ministry-specific preliminary competitions (until August), an integrated final round (September to November), and concludes with a grand championship in December.

For this preliminary competition, prospective entrepreneurs or startups established within the last three years holding intellectual property can participate. However, eligibility is limited to those with cumulative investment funding of 3 billion KRW or less.

KIPO will conduct a document evaluation focused on the intellectual property held by the companies (in June), followed by public participation evaluation and presentation evaluation (in July), selecting a total of 15 outstanding intellectual property startups.

Awarded companies will receive the Commissioner of KIPO Award and a total prize money of 18 million KRW. They will also gain access to investment attraction consulting and briefing sessions (August to September) and the right to advance to the integrated final round of Challenge! K-Startup (September to November).

Last year, 13 startups advanced to the integrated final round, securing funding worth approximately 46.6 billion KRW, establishing the competition as a gateway for startup growth.

Notably, last year, AJ2 Co., Ltd., a company developing iris recognition security systems, won the Encouragement Award (prize money of 20 million KRW) at the grand championship and earned the opportunity to participate in the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

For application and other detailed information about the competition, inquiries can be made to the Korea Invention Promotion Association.

Kang Yoon-seok, head of the Idea Economy Innovation Team at KIPO, said, “As part of proactive administration, KIPO will continue to support the commercialization of intellectual property and investment attraction for early-stage startups. We hope for active participation from many early-stage startups.”