300 Deep Tech Companies in Semiconductors, Bio, and Future Cars Gathered in One Place

'2022 New Industry Startup Tech Expo' 개최

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 16th that it held the ‘2022 New Industry Startup Tech Expo’ at COEX in Seoul.

The 2022 New Industry Startup Tech Expo is an event where about 300 outstanding startups and venture companies from key new industry sectors such as system semiconductors, bio-health, and future cars gather to share achievements and connect startups and venture companies with investors. The event runs for three days from today until the 18th.

Since 2020, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups has been intensively nurturing startups and venture companies with innovative technologies in new industry fields through the ‘Innovation Field Startup Package’ project. It has selected 346 companies in the system semiconductor, bio-health, and future car sectors and provided customized support such as commercialization funds, research and development (R&D), loans, guarantees, and exports, considering the characteristics and growth cycles of the companies. Among them, 250 companies selected in 2020 achieved about 1 trillion KRW in investment attraction last year, and currently, six companies have completed listing on KOSDAQ.

Additionally, the startup ‘Streeseu,’ which possesses autonomous driving high-precision map production technology, successfully merged and acquired (M&A) with Kakao Mobility.

Among other companies supported by the Innovation Field Startup Package project, 115 companies are promoting cooperation with 333 large and medium-sized enterprises through 426 joint R&D, commercialization, and supply projects, indicating expectations for continuous growth in the future.

At the opening ceremony of this New Industry Startup Tech Expo, nine individuals who made significant contributions to corporate development, including representatives from leading companies in each field such as SemiFive and COCLE, received commendations from the Minister of SMEs and Startups.

In particular, SemiFive, a design platform company covering everything from design to packaging and testing in the system semiconductor field, was founded in 2019 but has collaborated with global semiconductor companies ARM and Samsung Electronics to successfully attract over 100 billion KRW in Series B investment this year.

Also, COCLE, a startup in the autonomous driving sector jointly conducting research and development on sound recognition technology with Daimler and Google, was recognized for its remarkable achievements by expanding its business area overseas based on its proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

On the first day of the event, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups held a ‘System Semiconductor Specialist Recruitment Fair’ as a side event, connecting more than 30 innovative companies in the system semiconductor field with over 150 university students majoring in related fields, in collaboration with the Seoul National University System Semiconductor Industry Promotion Center.

The System Semiconductor Specialist Recruitment Fair is an event promoted as a follow-up measure after Vice Minister Joo Joo-hyun of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups listened to opinions on the system semiconductor workforce status in August.

During the event, in addition to company performance exhibitions, the main institutions of the Innovation Field Startup Package project in each sector?system semiconductors, bio-health, and future cars?hosted gatherings where academia, industry experts, entrepreneurs, and investors could share domestic and international technology trends and network.

On the 3rd, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced a strategy to intensively nurture more than 1,000 ‘super-gap startups’ over five years from 2023 in advanced future technology fields including system semiconductors, bio-health, and future cars.

Minister Lee Young of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups said, “I hope that many innovative startups and venture companies that have shown remarkable growth will continue to grow and become global unicorns. Using government support as a catalyst, academia, companies, and investors will work closely together to support Korea’s deep tech startups to become super-gap companies leading the global market.”

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