LG "To Nurture 300 Startups Over 3 Years... Plans to Invest 150 Billion Won"

Launch of Startup Open Innovation Brand 'Superstart'
150 Billion KRW Investment Over 3 Years, Nurturing 300 Promising Startups

At the LG 'Superstart' brand launch event, Park Il-pyeong, President of LG Science Park (fifth from the left), and Heo Jun-nyeong, CEO of GS Ventures (tenth from the left), are taking a commemorative photo.

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Sun-mi] LG has launched the startup open innovation brand ‘Superstart’ to discover and support young entrepreneurs, and plans to nurture 300 promising domestic startups over the next three years.

On the 8th, LG held the ‘Superstart Brand Day’ and announced its startup nurturing plan. Superstart is an LG Group-level open innovation platform that connects promising startups with LG affiliates operating in electronics, chemicals, telecommunications, and services, as well as external partners such as venture capital (VC), accelerators (AC), public institutions, and universities. The event was attended by about 100 startup stakeholders including Park Il-pyeong, president of LG Science Park, startups, investors, public institutions, and universities.

To nurture promising startups and support stable growth, LG plans to invest 150 billion KRW over the next three years, discover and nurture 300 promising startups, and create 2,000 new jobs. As the first step to concretize execution, LG launched Superstart this time to strengthen the youth startup ecosystem.

LG will support verifying various ideas of startups and linking them to commercialization. To this end, LG plans to provide a dedicated space at LG Science Park, where the R&D organizations of eight major LG Group affiliates are gathered, and support more than 10 billion KRW annually.

Through Superstart, LG will provide essential elements for startup growth such as group-level technology development cooperation, business collaboration, and investment attraction, and offer one-stop support to connect external cooperation partners for greater growth. In addition, LG plans to nurture early-stage startups with innovative ideas that can nurture future dreams even if they are not related to LG’s business. A new Superstart self-program called ‘Superstart Incubator’ will be established to discover and nurture startups in the ‘early stage’ of idea development, providing up to 100 million KRW in commercialization support funds.

To practically help solve problems startups will face in the future, LG will also operate an advisory group called ‘Superstart Crew,’ composed of LG employees from various departments. Startups will receive advice related not only to R&D but also to legal affairs, marketing, purchasing, finance, and human resources to solve problems, while LG employees can gain diverse insights through exchanges with startups. LG plans to expand the advisory group to 100 members by the end of this year to develop it into a sincere cooperative community between startups and LG.

LG will reorganize the 400-pyeong startup-dedicated workspace ‘Open Lab’ located at LG Science Park into the ‘Superstart Lab.’ Young entrepreneurs running startups can move into the ‘Superstart Lab’ free of charge and focus on their business without cost burdens. The ‘Superstart Lab,’ a cradle of innovation, has produced over 100 young entrepreneurs from more than 20 startups over the past four years. LG plans to gradually expand the scale and benefits of the Superstart Lab in the future.

Park Il-pyeong, president of LG Science Park, said, “The challenge of startups is a great beginning for a better tomorrow,” and added, “We will focus on providing sincere and practical support to startups that courageously and boldly take on challenges.”

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