Turning Small Business Owners into Innovative Companies... 'Strong Small Business Final Pitching Competition' Held

Up to 40 Million Won Support for Commercialization Funds

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups supports promising small business owners based on lifestyle culture to help them grow into larger enterprises.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will hold the ‘Strong Small Business Owners Final Pitching Competition’ from the 10th to the 13th at Gwangmyeong IBEX Studio to select entrepreneurial small business owners aiming to become Lycons (lifestyle & local sector innovative companies aspiring to be unicorns).

The ‘Strong Small Business Owners Growth Support Project’ is a program that discovers promising small business owners based on lifestyle culture and supports them in developing unique products and services through convergence with creators and startups, helping them grow into larger companies.

In the first audition held in June, the Ministry selected 210 teams out of 9,137 small business owners (competition ratio 43.5:1) and provided up to 60 million KRW per team to enhance their business models.

This ‘Strong Small Business Owners Final Pitching Competition’ was organized under the slogan “Transforming Small Business Owners into Innovative Companies, Korea’s New Future Lycons” to nurture small business owners who developed excellent products and services among 150 teams selected in the first audition (excluding online seller types) as Lycons.

In addition to the main event ‘Pitching STAGE,’ the final pitching competition will operate an ‘Investment STAGE’ for investment IR, lectures, and conferences, and a ‘Creative ZONE’ for product exhibitions and live commerce, providing opportunities for market expansion and investment attraction.

On the last day of the event, the 13th, an awards ceremony and congratulatory performances will be held, offering a variety of attractions and establishing the event as a representative festival for entrepreneurial small business owners.

The final 60 teams selected through this pitching competition will receive additional commercialization funds of up to 40 million KRW for scale-up, serving as a stepping stone for entrepreneurial small business owners to leap into Lycon companies.

Oh Young-joo, Minister of SMEs and Startups, emphasized, “This event is an innovative platform to help entrepreneurial small business owners, who will become Korea’s new growth engine, grow as entrepreneurs. We will strive to raise public awareness of small business owners as important economic actors in our country and build a growth ladder enabling them to advance into small and medium-sized enterprises.”