Seoul City to Foster Global Unicorns at Four Major Startup Hubs

Global TOP 5 Startup Cities Launch

Seoul City announced on the 26th that it will strengthen support centered on the four Seoul Startup Hubs (Gongdeok, M+, Seongsu, Changdong), which play a pivotal role in Seoul's startup policies, to prevent the startup ecosystem from shrinking and to maintain the growth momentum of our startups amid the prolonged economic downturn.

The plan is to focus investments so that the 'innovative startup ecosystem' can become a driving force to overcome the economic crisis, ultimately creating 'Seoul, a city good for startups.' This year, the speed of overseas expansion for competitive startups will be accelerated, and opportunities for collaboration with large and medium-sized enterprises will be expanded. A total of 868 companies will be selected and nurtured throughout the year.

To this end, the four major startup hubs in Seoul will concentrate their capabilities on five areas: ▲ establishing startup networks with eight overseas cities (new project), ▲ expanding open innovation that matches technologies between large/medium-sized enterprises and startups to 595 companies, ▲ expanding bases to support overseas expansion in major countries, ▲ enhancing the startup ecosystem both online and offline to improve accessibility among startups, large/medium-sized enterprises, accelerators, and investors, and ▲ discovering and nurturing promising startups in future industries such as robotics and metaverse.

First, to diversify support for building startup networks between overseas cities, Seoul will establish collaborative relationships with overseas cities that have solid startup ecosystems, laying the foundation for our companies' overseas expansion and promoting the 'Seoul, a city good for startups' brand to attract overseas investors to invest in our promising companies.

Regarding growth acceleration through innovative technology matching between large/medium-sized enterprises and startups, the opportunities for open innovation through technology cooperation between startups with innovative technologies and products and large/medium-sized enterprises will be expanded by industry sector. A total of 595 startups in AI, bio, environment, beauty, and other fields will be selected and intensively matched with large and medium-sized enterprises. A total of 2.6 billion KRW will be invested to support technology development, investment, and marketing.

For the advancement of the startup ecosystem online and offline, including new industry trends and technology cooperation, Seoul City will invest 3.8 billion KRW to strengthen global networking and cooperation systems among ecosystem members such as startups, large/medium-sized enterprises, and global partners, and to share global technology trends. The functionality of the online startup platform will be enhanced, and investment attraction venues will be diversified to improve accessibility between investors and startup companies.

Regarding the operation of excellent startup discovery and nurturing programs through public-private cooperation, Seoul will also invest 4.8 billion KRW to provide one-stop support from selection to nurturing and investment for 133 early and growth-stage startups in future growth fields such as robotics and metaverse, in cooperation with private companies that have specialized corporate incubation functions such as technology, investment, and business consulting.

Detailed announcements and applications for each project at the four startup hubs can be found on the online platform 'Startup Plus.'

Kim Tae-gyun, Director of Seoul City's Economic Policy Office, said, “In the post-COVID-19 economic recovery phase, the survival of early-stage startups is threatened by the ongoing triple crisis of high interest rates, inflation, and exchange rates.” He added, “We will focus on supporting the growth and aggressive overseas expansion of promising new industry startups such as AI, bio, robotics, and fintech centered on the four Seoul Startup Hubs to create a foundation for the growth of global unicorn companies representing Korea.”

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