Shinhan Financial Group Establishes 'Incheon Startup Park,' a Cradle for Innovative Startups

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Haeyoung] Shinhan Financial Group is partnering with the government, local governments, and private companies to create the 'Incheon Startup Park' to build an innovative startup ecosystem. With an investment of 62 billion KRW, they plan to establish a startup nurturing platform and focus on discovering and fostering startups specialized in global, tech, and bio sectors.

On the 27th, Shinhan Financial signed a business agreement for the establishment of Incheon Startup Park at Tomorrow City in Songdo, Incheon, and held a vision declaration ceremony to commemorate the launch of Incheon Startup Park via a video conference.

The Incheon Startup Park project is a 'public-private cooperative startup ecosystem creation project' that builds spaces for nurturing startups and operates an accelerating program to foster prospective unicorn companies (unlisted companies valued at over 1 billion USD). Shinhan Financial participates as an operating entity alongside government and local government bodies such as the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and Incheon Metropolitan City, as well as private operators like Celltrion.

Incheon Startup Park is an innovation growth platform established as part of the group's mid-to-long-term innovation finance plan, the 'Triple K Project,' announced by Shinhan Financial in December last year. It aims to build a platform specialized in nurturing global, tech, and bio startups by leveraging Incheon's geopolitical characteristics.

Shinhan Financial plans to strengthen the global forward base function for startups wishing to expand overseas and focus on nurturing startups equipped with 4th industrial revolution innovative technologies such as data, artificial intelligence (AI), 5th generation (5G), and Internet of Things (IoT), as well as startups based on bio and health. In particular, as a global and bio specialized hub, it will cooperate with the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, and global accelerators from Europe, China, Southeast Asia, and the Americas to select more than 80 startups annually that wish to expand globally and provide various opportunities for overseas expansion.

Additionally, all resident companies will receive up to one year of free office space for incubation and scale-up, approximately 12 billion KRW in operating expenses over four years, and a dedicated fund of 50 billion KRW to support the discovery and nurturing of unicorn and prospective unicorn companies.

Furthermore, a startup membership system will be introduced to provide information on various Shinhan Financial startup support programs to companies not residing in the Startup Park.

Cho Yong-byeong, Chairman of Shinhan Financial Group, stated, "IT companies and platform operators that produce and provide innovative services are the protagonists of South Korea's future competitiveness," adding, "We will do our utmost at the group level to ensure that Incheon Startup Park becomes an 'innovation landmark' that any startup wants to join and any unicorn company must pass through."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.