'Super Gap Startup 1000+ Project' fosters deep tech unicorns
Sales, employment, and investment surge among supported startups
New global scale-up policies and 'Super Gap Link-up' program unveiled
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 13th that it held the '2025 Super Gap Startup Renovation Day' event, where it shared the achievements of its support policies to date for this year's newly selected super gap startups and others, and unveiled new global scale-up support policies.
The 'Super Gap Startup 1000+ Project' is an initiative aimed at fostering deep tech startups in new industrial sectors. From 2023 to 2027, the project seeks to select and intensively support more than 1,000 outstanding deep tech startups in ten major emerging industries, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and system semiconductors, with the goal of nurturing them into global unicorns that will drive the future of the national economy. As of last year, 407 companies had been supported. This year, deep tech startups were recruited through various methods, including open calls, private sector verification, and recommendations from relevant ministries. Ultimately, 182 companies were selected, overcoming a high competition rate of 13.7 to 1.
Oh Youngjoo, Minister of SMEs and Startups, is delivering a greeting at the '2025 Super Gap Startup Renovation Day' held on the 13th at the Fairmont Ambassador Hotel in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. Photo by Ministry of SMEs and Startups
Through this project, two deep tech unicorns, including Rebellions, have emerged. There are 51 pre-unicorns with a corporate value of over 100 billion won. In addition, according to a performance survey of the 407 super gap startups selected up to last year, sales increased by 4.4%, employment by 18.5%, and cumulative investment attracted by 43.2% compared to before the support. Through investment attraction and scale-up specialized programs, seven startups secured a total investment of 32 billion won, nine companies were listed on KOSDAQ, and 35 companies received innovation awards at CES 2024 and 2025.
Regarding the new global scale-up support policies, the ministry will launch the 'Super Gap Link-up' program in four sectors, including bio and robotics, where there is high demand for collaboration and strong potential for results among super gap fields. This program will support market entry, investment attraction, and global expansion through cooperation between anchor institutions, such as large enterprises in each sector, and super gap startups. In addition, to accelerate investment in super gap startups, the ministry will establish the 'Super Gap VC Membership', a consultative body composed of venture capital firms with major deep tech sector funds. This body will regularly host investment attraction events, provide open innovation opportunities, and facilitate networking. The ministry also plans to focus on supporting IPOs for super gap startups through a consultative body consisting of major securities firms and securities companies specializing in SMEs and venture businesses.
At the event, Minister Oh Youngjoo presented plaques to ten representative super gap startups selected this year, including Mangoboost. This was followed by a presentation on best practices in scale-up support by Kim Jooyoung, CEO of HyperExcel, which was selected as a super gap startup in 2023, and a vision presentation by Lee Seyoung, CEO of the newly selected Ruitten Technologies.
Minister Oh stated, "Over the past two years, the Super Gap Project of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups has generated significant achievements for deep tech startups, but there are still calls from the field for even more support." "The ministry will continue to provide comprehensive support through a variety of policies so that Korea's deep tech startups can use the Super Gap Project as a springboard to become global unicorns," she added.
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