The Best Junior Selected by Senior Young Entrepreneurs... Final Pitching Competition of CheongCheongCon Held

24 Youth Startup Teams Passed Preliminary Round
Each 1st Place Team in 6 Major Non-Face-to-Face Fields Receives 120 Million KRW Support

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 19th that it held the final pitching competition and awards ceremony of the first special event of ComeUp 2020, 'CheongCheongCon,' at Lotte Signiel in Seoul. Photo by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 19th that it held the final pitching competition and awards ceremony for the first special event of ComeUp 2020, 'CheongCheongCon,' at Lotte Signiel Seoul.

CheongCheongCon is an acronym for a startup contest where senior young entrepreneurs lead junior young entrepreneurs. It is a newly established competition funded by the third supplementary budget this year to discover innovative non-face-to-face startup ideas from young people aged 29 and under.

This program limited the startup fields to six major non-face-to-face sectors in response to the COVID-19 situation. The biggest feature is that senior young entrepreneurs leading the startup industry participate as judges and mentors, evaluating and mentoring items from the perspective of youth.

During the three weeks of application submissions starting from the end of August, 738 teams applied for 18 spots, recording a high competition rate of 41 to 1. Subsequently, through written and face-to-face evaluations directly participated in by senior young entrepreneurs, a total of 24 teams?four teams per each of the six sectors?were selected. The participating teams, who supplemented their business plans through mentoring by senior young entrepreneurs, took part in the final pitching today.

The final pitching evaluation panel consisted of seven senior young entrepreneurs and 20 public jurors. The senior young entrepreneurs were composed of promising companies such as Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 global leaders and TIPS-selected excellent companies. The public jurors were 20 people selected from 369 applicants who applied during the recruitment announcement from October 12 to November 4, based on criteria such as startup experience and technical expertise.

The evaluation chairman, CEO Lim Jaewon of ‘Gopizza,’ is a successful senior entrepreneur who founded Gopizza at the age of 29, and within three years operates over 70 stores nationwide. He developed an AI oven machine, Goven, that bakes pizza without human intervention, bringing new innovation to the pizza industry. He was selected as a Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 global leader in 2019 and as a Ministry of SMEs and Startups Baby Unicorn company in 2020.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups plans to provide initial commercialization funds of 120 million KRW for first place, 80 million KRW for second place, and 50 million KRW for third place in each sector among the teams participating in today’s final presentation competition.

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