Small Business Owners Begin Challenge of 'Raikon'

530 Teams Break Through 43.5:1 Competition Ratio to Present Business Models
‘Strong Small Business Growth Support Project’ 1st Audition

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that it will hold the first audition of the Strong Small Business Growth Support Project from the 10th to the 27th to nurture small business owners with creative ideas into 'Licorns'. Licorn (LICORN) refers to innovative companies in the lifestyle and local sectors aiming to become unicorns.

The Strong Small Business Growth Support Project helps small business owners grow into entrepreneurial small business owners by collaborating with partner companies to develop their own differentiated products or services.

In particular, by adopting a step-by-step competitive audition format, promising small business owners are evaluated on cooperation, convergence, growth potential, and performance, and focused support such as business advancement funds is provided. Starting this year, the support types have been subdivided into five categories by adding ▲Online Seller and ▲Century-Old Store & Small Manufacturer types to the existing ▲Lifestyle ▲Local Brand ▲Global tracks.

This year, a total of 9,137 small business owners applied, recording a high competition rate of 43.5 to 1, and 530 promising small business teams were selected to participate in the first audition after document and presentation evaluations.

For these teams, support is provided through type-specific host organizations, including team formation with partner companies, preparation of presentation materials, delivery speech skills, and capacity-building programs for business model advancement.

The 210 teams selected through the first audition will receive up to 60 million KRW in commercialization funds that can be used for space planning, prototype production and verification, branding, design, etc., and will be granted the qualification to participate in the final audition later.

Oh Young-joo, Minister of SMEs and Startups, said, “The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will nurture entrepreneurial small business owners into Licorns, which are global lifestyle innovative companies and local brands, turning small business owners into enterprises and making them a new growth engine for Korea.”