Securing New Growth Engines for Local Companies and Supporting Private-Led Growth of the Venture Ecosystem
On the 19th, Korea Development Bank (KDB) announced that it signed a business agreement to establish an Open Innovation Fund for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-sized companies in the Gwangju-Jeonnam region at the 'KDB NextRound Open Innovation Fund DAY' held at the KDB headquarters.
This fund, the eighth Open Innovation Fund by KDB, is scheduled to be raised in August this year with a scale of 25 billion KRW. GSA PE and Cape Investment & Securities will serve as co-managers, focusing on collaboration between investing companies and promising startups. Key investors include SMEs and mid-sized companies from the Gwangju-Jeonnam region such as Hanah Construction, Sarangbang Media, Daesung Academy, Jeontong, and Korea Prime Pharmaceutical. They will seek joint growth opportunities through business cooperation and friendly mergers and acquisitions (M&A) between investing companies and startups.
KDB has been steadily establishing Open Innovation Funds since 2017 to support open innovation for SMEs and mid-sized companies and to promote private-led growth of the domestic venture ecosystem by channeling corporate capital into the venture market. Last year, to achieve two goals?'securing new growth engines for regional mid-sized companies' and 'fostering national strategic industries'?KDB established the 5th fund involving SMEs and mid-sized companies in the Daejeon-Chungcheong region, the 6th fund involving SMEs and mid-sized companies in the Southeast region, and the 7th fund involving traditional automobile parts manufacturers.
Meanwhile, at the 'KDB NextRound Open Innovation Fund DAY,' along with the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the KDB Open Innovation Fund program and the management plans for this fund were introduced. Additionally, three outstanding startups discovered through existing Open Innovation Funds conducted investment attraction IR sessions.
A KDB official explained, “We plan to continuously expand the establishment of Open Innovation Funds to support securing new growth engines for regionally based SMEs and mid-sized companies and to promote private-led growth of the venture ecosystem by channeling corporate capital into the venture market.”
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