Looking for South Korea's Leading Venture Companies

2024 Venture Startup Merit Award Nominee Applications Open

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that it will identify award-winning companies from February 2 to March 8, targeting venture and startup companies that are the driving force behind South Korea's innovation growth.

The 'Venture Startup Merit Awards' have been held since 1997 to honor exemplary venture and startup companies that have created innovation through a challenging spirit and to spread successful cases. The award categories are ▲Venture Activation ▲Investment Activation ▲Startup Activation ▲Support Institutions in four sectors. A total of 183 awards will be given, including 40 government awards such as orders of merit, presidential and prime ministerial citations, and 143 citations from the Minister of SMEs and Startups.

Starting this year, the role of regional Small and Medium Venture Business Administration offices in the evaluation of award candidates will be strengthened by increasing the on-site evaluation scores and expanding qualitative evaluation items. Actual recommendation rights will also be granted to actively promote the discovery of regional star companies.

In addition, the awards in the venture employees category, which had high competition last year, will be expanded to actively encourage participation not only from company representatives but also from outstanding employees. Minister Oh Young-joo stated, “We will actively encourage entrepreneurs and investors who have contributed to establishing a private-led venture investment ecosystem, as well as support institution staff who have contributed to the formulation of sustainable venture support policies.”

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