Busan City to Hold Finals of the 6th Startup Investment Competition

1:30 PM on the 19th at the eSports Arena, attended by the Mayor, BNK Busan Bank President, and Busan MBC CEO

212 Promising Startups Nationwide Participate, 10 Finalists Selected After 21:1 Competition

The city of Busan will hold the finals of the ‘B-Startup Challenge (Startup Investment Competition)’ at 1:30 PM on the 19th at the Busan e-Sports Stadium.

B-Startup Challenge (Startup Investment Competition) Poster.

The competition will proceed in two parts: the finals evaluation and the awards ceremony.

In the first part, the ten companies that advanced to the finals will give presentations for evaluation. Following this, the second part awards ceremony will be attended by over 100 people, including Mayor Park Hyungjoon, BNK Busan Bank President Bang Seongbin, and Busan MBC CEO Choi Byeonghan. Awards will be presented to the five companies selected through the finals evaluation.

This event is co-hosted by the city, BNK Busan Bank, and Busan MBC, and organized by the Busan Economic Promotion Agency and BNK Venture Investment.

The ‘B-Startup Challenge’ has been held since 2019 to discover and nurture promising startups and marks its sixth year this year. It is Busan’s representative startup investment competition, having produced a total of 24 winning companies and attracted follow-up investments totaling 24 billion KRW to date.

This competition is the first and only one in the country to be conducted through equity investment. Startups that find it difficult to secure initial investment can receive seed investment of up to 300 million KRW through this competition, along with business support and follow-up investment opportunities, thereby laying the foundation for growth.

This year, a total of 212 companies participated (final competition rate of 42:1). After document screening and preliminary evaluations, ten finalists were selected, including four companies from the Busan area.

On the day of the finals, five companies will be selected from among the ten finalists to receive the Grand Prize, Gold Prize, Silver Prize, Bronze Prize, and Special Prize.

The winning companies will receive a total of 300 million KRW in equity investment, with BNK Busan Bank providing the full amount: 130 million KRW for the Grand Prize, 80 million KRW for the Gold Prize, and 50 million KRW for the Silver Prize, among others.

In addition to investment support, participating companies will be offered a variety of follow-up support and investment opportunities, including support from Busan Bank’s ‘SUM Incubator Program’, linkage to events such as Slush’D and FLY ASIA, and incubation support from the city for technology startups.

Mayor Park Hyungjoon stated, “The city plans to systematically support startups by discovering various policies and collaborating with related organizations, with the long-term goal of fostering unicorn companies. Through this competition, we will do our utmost to support innovative and outstanding companies so they can grow into global enterprises from our region.”