Fostering Creative-Based Small Business Owners into Entrepreneurial Types

Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Recruiting Strong Small Business Participating Companies for 2024

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 30th that it is recruiting companies to participate in the '2024 Strong Small Business Growth Support Project' to support small business owners who pioneer new business fields with creative ideas.

The Strong Small Business Growth Support Project is a program that helps small business owners develop differentiated products and services through collaboration with partner companies, enabling them to grow into entrepreneurial small business owners. Last year, 4,355 companies applied, recording a competition rate of 41.5 to 1 based on the first selection, demonstrating high interest from creative small business owners.

This year, to meet the high demand from small business owners and enhance business efficiency, the project will be improved by increasing the number of selected companies and subdividing participation fields. First, the support scale will be significantly expanded from 105 to 210 companies. Additionally, the existing lifestyle, local brand, and global tracks will be subdivided into a total of 3 tracks and 5 support types, with the addition of online seller and Baeknyeon Gage·Sogongin types.

Also, it is now possible to apply for overlapping tracks in different years. For example, a company selected last year in the lifestyle or local brand track can apply this year in the online seller or global type. First selected companies will receive 60 million KRW for business model advancement funds, and the second final selected companies will receive an additional 40 million KRW for scale-up commercialization funds, providing up to 100 million KRW in total funding. Furthermore, companies that failed the second final selection last year can re-challenge the second audition.

Minister Oh Young-joo said, “Recently, the number of small business owners starting businesses with their own growth stories and product/service innovations is increasing,” and “We will actively nurture these entrepreneurial small business owners as new startups and role models for small business owners in Korea, transforming not only local regions but the entire country.”

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