Design Promotion Institute Supports Growth of Fashion and Beauty Startups... Large Corporations and Experts Join Effort

Recruitment for the 3rd Batch of the 'StyleTech Promising Companies Growth Support Program'

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bo-kyung] The Korea Institute of Design Promotion and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy are recruiting companies to participate in the 3rd 'StyleTech Promising Companies Growth Support Program' until the 17th of next month.

StyleTech is a new business field that combines 4th Industrial Revolution technologies with style industries such as fashion and beauty. Since 2019, it has been supporting the rapid growth of promising startups through an accelerating program that provides funding, space, and mentoring support to collaborate with large and medium-sized enterprises.

Through the 1st and 2nd programs, a total of 40 well-known companies have received support. In the 2nd program last year, excellent cooperation results were achieved to create an ecosystem for promising company growth, including 5 collaborations with large companies such as E-Land and AmorePacific, and attracting investments of 5.47 billion KRW to 12 promising companies.

Notable achievements were made by companies participating in the accelerating program, such as Clonet Corporation, a commerce service provider based on short clip content; Collaboground, which develops and supplies beauty shop customer management applications; and Virtuallive, a hair and beauty curation service provider based on virtual hairstyle experience.

This 3rd program will also provide companies with up to 50 million KRW worth of support over approximately 8 months, including ▲collaboration opportunities with large and medium-sized enterprises ▲support for designer professional personnel ▲prototype production costs ▲opportunities to participate in demo days ▲shared office support near fashion and beauty industry clusters in major areas of Seoul ▲mentoring and expert consulting in various fields ▲and provision of experiential exhibition spaces to help StyleTech companies grow.

In particular, this year AmorePacific, E-Land Group, and F&F Partners will participate as open innovation partner companies. They plan to join forces with top domestic experts to minimize trial and error and risks encountered when entering the market.

A representative from the Korea Institute of Design Promotion stated, "Selected companies will enhance their early business capabilities such as expertise and infrastructure through collaboration with large companies, and large companies will quickly respond to market trends by receiving innovation from promising companies with good technology and ideas."

To participate in the StyleTech Promising Companies Growth Support Program, applicants must go through evaluation procedures including document and presentation reviews, and can apply online until the 17th of next month.

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