About 30 Startups to Be Selected
Up to 60 Million KRW in Commercialization Funding per Company
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 24th that it is recruiting companies to participate in the demand-based category of the 'Public-Private Partnership Open Innovation (OI) Support Project.'
This project is designed to induce partnerships and establish and support collaboration systems between large and medium-sized enterprises, public institutions, and startup companies. It consists of problem-solving (Top-Down), autonomous proposal (Bottom-Up), and demand-based (On-Demand) programs.
Through this project, last year, the startup Astha Co., Ltd., which collaborated with KT, introduced its marketing content generation artificial intelligence (AI) engine 'AVICA' to KT. As a result, the time required to produce marketing content was reduced by 99.5%, and operational costs decreased by up to 60%. The company Thegam collaborated with Kakao Mobility to conduct a demonstration of EnerShift, an energy efficiency device for electric vehicles. Based on these achievements, they signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Kakao Mobility and plan to advance the technology and conduct pilot projects.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups plans to select about 30 startups through this announcement and provide each company with up to 60 million KRW in commercialization funds. Subsequently, selected companies will also be eligible to apply for the 'Startup Growth Technology Development' project, which offers R&D funding support of up to 120 million KRW for one year.
Companies wishing to participate in the demand-based category can directly check their OI-related information and apply for collaboration proposals online through the official website of the 'OI Market,' a public-private partnership OI dedicated platform that has been operating since last year.
Lee Junhee, Director of the New Industry Technology Startup Division at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, "This year, through the advanced OI Market platform, participating companies will be able to find collaboration partners more quickly and conveniently. We hope many startups actively utilize the open OI support project to receive commercialization funding and seize opportunities to penetrate the market together with large and medium-sized enterprises."
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