Pohang City Accelerates Construction of 'Green Bio Venture Campus,' a Cradle for Venture Startups

350 Billion KRW Investment, Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs to Establish Specialized Facility for Green Bio Venture Development

Detailed Design This Year, Completion in 2025, Discovering and Attracting Venture Companies... Creating I

Recently, as the government announced its policy to strategically foster the ‘Green Bio’ industry, Pohang City is accelerating the establishment of the ‘Green Bio Venture Campus’ with the goal of developing the Green Bio industry as a future growth engine for the region.

Green Bio Venture Campus.

The ‘Green Bio Venture Campus’ is a specialized facility for nurturing Green Bio ventures, providing research, equipment, space, and startup incubation programs tailored to Green Bio. Pohang City was selected for this project through the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs’ public contest last year.

The ‘Green Bio Venture Campus’ project is scheduled to run from 2022 to 2029 with a total budget of 35 billion KRW (16.1 billion KRW in national funds and 18.9 billion KRW in local funds). It will be developed on approximately 13,000㎡ within the Pohang Convergence Technology Industrial Complex, including one building housing venture support facilities, research and experimental facilities, and operational support facilities.

In April, the city selected the winning design through an architectural design proposal contest for the ‘Green Bio Venture Campus Construction Project’ and signed a design service contract, planning to complete the design by the end of this year.

Construction is set to begin in the first half of 2024 and be completed by 2025. The campus will operate internal facilities and corporate support programs tailored to the needs of Green Bio venture companies.

The Green Bio industry is a new industry that applies biotechnology to agricultural biological resources, creating added value across agriculture and related upstream and downstream industries. Its main sectors include seeds, veterinary pharmaceuticals, microorganisms, insects, natural products, and food materials.

The global Green Bio market was approximately 1.2 trillion USD as of 2020, with a rapid annual growth rate of 6.7%. However, the domestic market stood at 5.4 trillion KRW in 2020, representing only about 0.3% of the global market.

In response, the government has announced the ‘Green Bio Industry Promotion Strategy,’ aiming to grow the Green Bio industry, which enhances agricultural productivity and develops new materials, to a scale of 10 trillion KRW by 2027, actively promoting the industry’s development.

Following this trend, Pohang City signed a business agreement in April with Pohang Technopark, JinCell Biotech, and Seaweed to foster promising domestic Green Bio venture companies and promote the development of the Green Bio and cultured meat industries.

JinCell Biotech (CEO Kwon Tae-ho) is a company specializing in the development and production of protein-based biopharmaceuticals and materials. Since last year, it has been actively investing in developing materials such as growth factors dedicated to cultured meat, establishing new business models.

Seaweed (CEO Lee Hee-jae) is a startup developing Korean beef cultured meat using Hanwoo cells. Notably, its proprietary seaweed-based cell culture scaffold technology and serum-free media technology have attracted attention for their cost competitiveness and ability to actively address environmental issues.

JinCell Biotech and Seaweed, tenants of the Green Vaccine Demonstration Support Center, will use this agreement as an opportunity for Seaweed to open an Open Innovation Center within the Green Vaccine Demonstration Support Center. They will establish a cooperative system with Green Bio companies like JinCell Biotech to develop cultured meat materials and strengthen industrial competitiveness. They also plan to continue collaborating to revitalize the Green Bio industry after the completion of the Green Bio Venture Campus.

Mayor Lee Kang-deok stated, “Pohang has the optimal environment for Green Bio venture companies to grow,” adding, “By establishing the Green Bio Venture Campus leveraging regional strengths, we expect to create new innovative growth engines through discovering and attracting Green Bio ventures, enabling sustainable growth.”

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