The Public Directly Judges Future Unicorn Companies

Recruitment of National Jury for the '2022 Baby Unicorn 200 Nurturing Project'

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 26th that it will recruit a public jury to participate in the final selection of companies eligible for support under the ‘Baby Unicorn 200 Development Project’ from the 27th to October 17th.

The ‘Baby Unicorn 200 Development Project’ is a venture policy brand aimed at promoting the emergence of unicorn companies. It selects and supports startups within seven years of establishment that have been verified for innovative business models and growth potential.

Selected companies receive up to 300 million KRW for market development costs, special guarantees, policy funds, and other additional incentives to help them grow into prospective unicorns (companies valued at over 100 billion KRW).

This year, the second half recruitment for Baby Unicorn 200 support companies attracted high interest from startups, with 334 companies applying for 40 spots, resulting in a competition ratio of 8.4 to 1.

By last year, the 100 companies selected and supported created 1,920 new jobs (19.2 jobs per company), increasing the number of employees by 55.6% (1.5 times). Their sales increased by 584.4 billion KRW, growing approximately 2.8 times (177%) per company.

Additionally, among the 100 companies, 60 attracted follow-up investments totaling 676.7 billion KRW, increasing their capital about 3.3 times compared to the time of application, and produced 18 prospective unicorn companies.

The public jury, composed of about 50 members, will conduct a fair and transparent evaluation together with 40 top domestic and international private expert evaluators, reflecting diverse public perspectives.

The public jury and expert evaluators will assess companies using the same evaluation criteria, and the final selection will be made by combining the expert evaluators’ results (70%) and the public jury’s results (30%).

The evaluation criteria include ▲growth potential as a unicorn company (60 points) ▲degree of support and encouragement for the company to become a unicorn (30 points) ▲social contribution potential (10 points), aiming to assess technological innovation and global market entry potential.

Those wishing to participate in the public jury can apply online by submitting proof of investment and startup-related documents. If the number of applicants exceeds the quota, selection will be made by lottery.

The selected public jury members will participate in the evaluation held on October 25th at the COEX conference room, and will receive an evaluation allowance.

Lee Dae-geon, Director of the Venture Innovation Policy Division at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, stated, “Next year, we will prepare and support the ‘Baby Unicorn 2.0’ policy to help selected companies expand beyond the domestic market to overseas.”

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