Growing Local Leading Startups... KT Heads to Daejeon Region

From the 30th of this month to the 5th of next month, KT, together with Daejeon Metropolitan City, Daejeon Creative Economy Innovation Center, and Shinhan Financial Group, will carry out the 'Daejeon Startup Open Space D-Bridge Support Project' to support promising startups in the Daejeon area.

The D-Bridge Support Project is a program that discovers science convergence startups with technological capabilities in the Daejeon area and provides commercialization funds. The project recruits through two tracks: KT task-solving field and startup business proposal type.

Eligibility requires startups within 7 years of establishment that have their headquarters, branch, or research institute in Daejeon. Selected startups will receive up to 50 million KRW in commercialization funds.

Additionally, KT is recruiting startups to participate in the 'KT X Daegu CCEI 2023 Daegu Scale-up Open Innovation Program' jointly with Daegu Creative Economy Innovation Center until the 1st of next month to support the scale-up of promising startups. Eligibility includes all startups within 7 years of establishment, and startups possessing solutions or services that can collaborate with KT can apply even if they are not located in Daegu.

KT is also collaborating with Creative Economy Innovation Centers in Gyeonggi and Incheon to achieve results.

Since 2015, the Gyeonggi Creative Economy Innovation Center, led by KT, has established an innovation cluster that leads the startup ecosystem based in Pangyo Techno Valley, building a cooperative system that supports startups’ rapid growth across all stages including discovery, nurturing, commercialization, and investment. A representative case is 'Bear Robotics,' which secured global investments worth 100 billion KRW. Bear Robotics, headquartered in Silicon Valley, is an excellent graduate company of the 'K-Startup Grand Challenge' operated by the Gyeonggi Innovation Center. KT directly participated in this investment along with Smilegate and launched a serving robot through its AI Robot Business Unit.

Through collaboration with KT, the Gyeonggi Creative Economy Innovation Center has supported a total of 890 incubated companies to date. Last year alone, the results included total sales of 600 billion KRW, employment of approximately 2,900 people, and investment attraction of 400 billion KRW. Exit (EXIT) achievements totaled 19 cases, including 5 initial public offerings (IPO) and 14 mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on a cumulative basis.

The six-year collaboration achievements with the Incheon Creative Economy Innovation Center are also significant. Since 2017, KT has been operating a commercialization linkage program with the Incheon Creative Economy Innovation Center that provides demonstration and development funds to startups wishing to commercialize. To date, a total of 49 venture startups have been discovered and supported through joint commercialization projects. After participating in the commercialization program, participating companies’ sales grew by an average of 868.67 million KRW. Cumulatively, investment attraction results reached 81.5 billion KRW.

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