Recruitment of Companies for SME Technology Commercialization Capacity Building Project

Business Commercialization Success Rate of Participating Companies 14.5% Points Higher Compared to General Companies

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Kwon Chil-seung) and the Small and Medium Business Corporation (Chairman Kim Hak-do, hereinafter referred to as SBC) announced on the 20th that they are recruiting companies to participate in the 'SME Technology Commercialization Capacity Building' project, which provides technology commercialization diagnosis and customized support to help SMEs commercialize their patents and technologies.

The SME Technology Commercialization Capacity Building project discovers promising technologies that have not yet been commercialized and, through technology commercialization diagnosis, confirms the likelihood of success from the perspectives of ▲technology completeness ▲marketability ▲commercialization capability, then provides tailored support for commercialization (commercialization support, market-friendly functional improvement, technology transfer) according to the type of support.

Since the project began supporting companies in 2017, the commercialization success rate of participating companies was analyzed to be 58.3% from 2018 to 2020, which is 14.5 percentage points higher than the average commercialization success rate of 43.8% for general SMEs. The support targets are SMEs that own technologies that have passed government R&D success evaluations or have registered patents but have not yet been commercialized (mass production and sales generation). Only one technology commercialization project per company can be applied for.

Commercialization support provides assistance such as commercialization planning, product performance improvement testing, and market marketing to help technologies lacking marketability successfully enter the market, supporting up to 75% of project costs up to a maximum of 80 million KRW. Market-friendly functional improvement support provides additional technology development for functional improvement and performance enhancement tailored to market demands for technologies and companies requiring technical supplementation, supporting up to 100 million KRW up to 80% of project costs. Technology transfer supports companies that own technologies with excellent technology completeness and marketability wishing to transfer technology by assisting with marketing through technology transaction platform registration and technology transactions and protection through technology trust.

Companies wishing to commercialize their owned technologies can apply on the SBC website by the 11th of next month. Chairman Kim Hak-do said, "To improve the overall level of technology commercialization among SMEs, this year we plan to provide coaching for medium- to short-term level improvement in deficient areas even to companies not selected as support targets," adding, "SBC will actively support promising technologies developed and owned by SMEs to pass the final gate of commercialization and come out into the world."

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