Park Young-sun "Pre-Unicorns, Steadily Growing into K-Unicorns"

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that on the 10th, it held the ‘K-Unicorn Project Selected Companies Meeting’ at Tipstown in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, to listen to the growth difficulties of companies selected for the ‘Baby Unicorn 200 Nurturing Project’ and ‘Pre-Unicorn Special Guarantee’ and to support their scale-up.

The event was attended by about 20 people, including Park Young-sun, Minister of SMEs and Startups, seven baby and pre-unicorn companies, and one venture capital firm.

According to the Ministry, the 27 companies selected as pre-unicorns last year received an average of 6 billion KRW in ‘Pre-Unicorn Special Guarantee’ support from the Korea Technology Finance Corporation. Subsequently, they attracted follow-up investments worth 375.4 billion KRW, about half of the total previous investment amount (731.9 billion KRW).

The Pre-Unicorn Special Guarantee is a program that provides up to 10 billion KRW in large-scale funds to companies with proven growth potential, regardless of whether they are in deficit.

Among the companies selected last year, ‘Coupang’ shared know-how for junior companies at the event. Coupang evaluated that the special guarantee resolved difficulties in debt financing and presented win-win cooperation with small producers as the secret to rapid growth, estimating the expected employment ripple effect in 2022 due to growth at about 80,000 people.

Looking at the newly selected baby and pre-unicorn companies this time, many are ventures and startups in the non-face-to-face sector.

Among them, ‘Backpacker,’ which has led the handmade e-commerce market, said, “Since its founding, it has contributed to job creation by increasing employment by an average of 87% annually.” ‘idus’ stated, “We will strive to become the center of the handmade market by providing online and offline sales, raw material supply, workspace, and artwork exhibitions, and grow into a global expansion platform in the future.”

Minister Park said, “These baby unicorns and pre-unicorns were selected amid the expectations and support of the public who hope they become companies that create jobs and contribute to society, and they are recognized as excellent ventures and startups in the market. The government will steadfastly promote the K-Unicorn Project so that it becomes a stepping stone for baby unicorn and pre-unicorn companies to grow into unicorn companies despite the COVID-19 crisis.”

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