"Hope for More Success Stories of Female Representatives"... Ministry of SMEs Supports Career-Interrupted Women Entrepreneurs

One-on-One Close Care with Senior Female Venture CEOs
Follow-up Support Programs Linked for Selected Women-Owned Businesses

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups is promoting a startup support program specialized for career-interrupted women to innovate the female venture ecosystem.

Oh Young-joo, Minister of SMEs and Startups, is explaining the main policies of the Ministry at the 2024 Policy Direction Briefing held on the 11th of last month at the Korea Federation of SMEs in Yeouido, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jo Yong-jun jun21@

On the 5th, the Ministry announced that it is recruiting entrepreneurs to participate in the '2024 Career-Interrupted Women Startup Program.' Career-interrupted women refer to those who have stopped economic activities due to marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, childcare, caregiving for family members, or working conditions, and must have a history of workplace enrollment in the health insurance qualification acquisition and loss confirmation certificate.

This program supports the establishment of commercialization strategies with market competitiveness through one-on-one close care with senior female venture CEOs. It reorganizes the existing 'Women Venture Startup Care Program' to focus on career-interrupted women. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in 2022, career-interrupted women account for about 20.8% of the total population, approximately 10 million people. Support policies for them have mainly focused on employment, with startup support policies being relatively very insufficient.

Accordingly, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups has expanded support for career-interrupted women to the startup sector, reflecting changes in the era of low birthrate and aging. The biggest feature of this program is that selected female companies can be connected with successful female company representatives in industries similar to their startup items. Unlike previous projects that only provided education and consulting, this program focuses on providing more practical help by being closer to the participants.

Support System for Career-Interrupted Women Entrepreneurs Program
Photo by Ministry of SMEs and Startups

This year, the Ministry plans to focus on nurturing technology-based industries such as semiconductors, bio, and lifestyle sectors. Selected companies will receive comprehensive support systems including customized education and mentoring, commercialization funds, and cooperative networks for about seven months.

Minister Oh Young-joo of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups said, "We will increase the number of success stories of female representatives like Kurly, Korea's first female unicorn platform company, and Eight Percent, which developed investment-linked financial products and attracted 45.3 billion KRW from Silicon Valley investors," adding, "We will also expand additional linked support such as exclusive guarantees and funds for the selected female companies to further foster female entrepreneurship."

Eligibility for application is career-interrupted women who are prospective or have been company representatives for less than six months. The evaluation consists mainly of document screening, face-to-face presentation and Q&A, and final selection, through which a total of 30 companies will be chosen. Applications can be submitted from the 6th of this month to the 5th of next month via a link on the website of the Korea Women Venture Association, the organizing institution. Follow-up support projects will also be linked to the female companies selected in this program. One of the main follow-up support projects, the Korea Technology Finance Corporation's special guarantee program exclusively for female companies, provides support such as guarantee fee reductions and preferential guarantee ratios.

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