Ministry of SMEs Partners with L'Oreal to Support Beauty Tech Startups

Minister Lee Young of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups is taking a commemorative photo at the business agreement ceremony with L'Or?al Group at Viva Technology 2023 in Paris, France, on the 15th (local time). From the left, Im Jeong-wook, Director of the Startup Venture Innovation Office at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups; Barbara Lavernos, Senior Vice President of Research, Innovation, and Technology at L'Or?al; Minister Lee; Fabrice Megarbane, President of North Asia.

On the 15th (local time), the Ministry of SMEs and Startups signed a business agreement with L'Or?al Group, the world's largest cosmetics company, to support startups in the beauty tech sector.

The signing ceremony held at 'Viva Technology 2023' in Paris, France, was attended by Lee Young, Minister of SMEs and Startups, and Barbara Lavernos, Vice President of Technology at L'Or?al, among others.

Through this business agreement, the Ministry and L'Or?al will discover and support domestic SMEs and startups with innovative digital and beauty tech technologies. They plan to focus particularly on nurturing startups in the fields of beauty tech, devices, skin diagnosis, and delivery systems that combine digital and AI technologies.

L'Or?al is promoting a startup incubation program called the 'Big Bang Program' in the North Asia region. It has been conducted in China since 2020 and will be implemented in Korea and Japan starting this year.

Barbara Lavernos, Vice President of Technology, stated, "This agreement will be a very important opportunity for L'Or?al to lead open innovation in North Asia. Through the Big Bang Program, we hope to collaborate with startups in Korea, China, and Japan and expand the creativity and innovation of North Asia to the world."

Minister Lee said, "Cooperation with L'Or?al Group, a global beauty company, is very meaningful. We will spare no effort to support our companies with innovative technologies to strengthen their market competitiveness through collaboration with global companies and to advance into the global market."

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