14 out of 20 "Pre-Unicorn" Companies Grew Through Seoul City Customized Support

Full Support for Seoul's Startup Ecosystem Amid COVID Crisis, Fostering Prospective Unicorns
Continuous Revitalization of Startup Ecosystem Through Focused Support from City and Government at Each Growth Stage

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] On the 6th, Seoul City announced that among the 20 companies selected as 'Pre-Unicorns' by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, 14 companies grew through Seoul City's discovery and customized support.

Among the 20 newly selected Pre-Unicorn companies, Seoul City has provided tailored support to 14 companies, accounting for 70% of the total, to help them grow into Pre-Unicorns. This support includes labor costs for technical personnel (9 companies), funding such as the Future Innovation Growth Fund (7 companies), R&D for technology commercialization (3 companies), and improvement of working environments through selection as Seoul-type Small Giants (2 companies).

Linkflow, a hardware startup spun off from Samsung Electronics in 2016, won the Innovation Award for three consecutive years (2018?2020) at the US CES (Consumer Electronic Show), the world's largest home appliance exhibition, with its wearable 360-degree camera technology. It is growing through support such as labor costs for technical personnel and plans to expand its scope to education and training in the medical and defense sectors, as well as safety in schools and academies, by developing various technologies and services for wearable cameras.

Fitpet is a Pet-Tech company growing through the Seoul Future Innovation Growth Fund, labor cost support for technical personnel, and selection as a 'Seoul-type Small Giant.' Starting with exports of the pet test kit 'Fitpet Ahead' to nine countries including the US in 2019, it is expanding its export lineup to include pet health functional foods and supplies, and plans to establish the first pet insurance company in Korea in 2023.

Seoul City has been providing full support such as investment attraction and funding to non-face-to-face industries like healthcare, fintech, and drones to ensure that startups with technological competitiveness do not lose growth potential during the unprecedented prolonged crisis caused by COVID-19.

Following last year, Seoul City plans to discover 100 promising startups in the second half of this year and promote continuous growth through package support including global expansion, product advancement, and sales and marketing.

Kim Ui-seung, Director of the Economic Policy Office, said, “As a result of bold support decisions to prevent startups with growth potential from collapsing due to temporary investment cliffs or funding shortages, the startup ecosystem has been strengthened, and startups can now receive stable support from Seoul City and the central government appropriate to their growth stage. Going forward, we will continue to discover companies with competitiveness and growth potential so that startups can grow into global unicorns, and focus on customized nurturing and growth support at each stage.”

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