Ministry of SMEs and Startups Announces "Recruitment of Baby Unicorns"... Additional Support Programs and Requirement Revisions

300 Baby Unicorns Selected Since 2020
Check the Ministry of SMEs and Startups Website Starting from the 23rd

The government will add support systems such as follow-up investment attraction for Baby Unicorns to create global unicorns.

Minister Oh Young-joo of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups delivered a greeting at the 'CES 2025 K-Startup Integrated Pavilion Participating Companies and Innovation Award Winners Meeting' held on the 21st at the Global Startup Center in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 22nd that it will recruit companies participating in the Baby Unicorn Nurturing Project, the first phase of the 'Global Unicorn Project,' starting from the 24th of this month.

Since 2020 until last year, the Ministry has selected 300 Baby Unicorn companies. After selection, there have been achievements such as 32 prospective unicorn companies with a corporate value of over 100 billion KRW, 6 companies that went public (IPO), and 5 companies that attracted follow-up investments exceeding 50 billion KRW.

The Baby Unicorn Nurturing Project is open to venture companies under the Special Act on the Promotion of Venture Businesses that have cumulative investment attraction performance of 2 billion KRW or more but less than 10 billion KRW, or companies with a corporate value of 30 billion KRW or more.

Starting this year, instead of providing one-time support to unicorn-selected companies, a guarantee support system linked to follow-up investment attraction, sales, and other corporate performance has been added to enable companies to continuously generate results. Additional guarantee limits will also be granted proportionally to the investment amount when attracting overseas investments.

Additionally, the restriction on business age in the support requirements has been removed, allowing all companies with technological development and global expansion capabilities to apply regardless of whether they are startups. By utilizing the Innovation Growth Capability Index (K-TOP), the evaluation of companies' innovation growth capabilities and performance management will be made more objective.

Regardless of the final selection, a program called 'Unicorn Lab' will be operated to discover and nurture excellent regional companies with growth potential so that they can grow into Baby Unicorns. A professional advisory group with evaluation capabilities in areas such as corporate value and investment attraction will be formed to provide close support from selection to post-management.

Detailed information about the Baby Unicorn Nurturing Project can be found on the Ministry of SMEs and Startups website and the Korea Technology Finance Corporation digital branch website starting from the 23rd.

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