Daejeon City Selected as K-Defense Startup Support Program Operator

Securing KRW 1.5 Billion in National Funding
Establishing Interregional Cooperation with Jeonbuk

Daejeon City Hall exterior view (Photo by Mo Seokbong)

Daejeon City has been selected as the operating institution for the Jeolla and Chungcheong regions in the 2026 K-Defense Startup Phase 1 Support Program, organized by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration.

With this selection, Daejeon City will form a consortium with Daejeon Technopark, Jeonbuk Technopark, Innopolis Venture Association, Daejeon Defense Industry Cooperative, and the Eulji Research Institute of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). By the end of this year, the city will invest KRW 1.5 billion in national funding to actively launch the project.

The K-Defense Startup Support Program aims to promote entry into the defense industry by identifying early-stage startups and promising small and medium-sized enterprises without prior defense experience, and providing step-by-step support such as project planning, defense industry education, preliminary research and development, and mentoring.

Through this initiative, Daejeon City plans to discover and nurture 15 promising defense startups from the Jeolla and Chungcheong regions. The city will offer comprehensive, customized support throughout the entire process, from technology development planning to prototype production and validation.

Participating companies that pass the Phase 1 performance evaluation will also be eligible to compete for mid- to long-term research and development (R&D) support in Phase 2 (up to KRW 500 million per company in 2027) and Phase 3 (up to KRW 2.1 billion per company in 2028).

The city aims to use this project as an opportunity to establish an interregional cooperation system linking Daejeon's research and development infrastructure with Jeonbuk's materials industry base.

The plan is to promote the defense conversion of regionally specialized technologies such as robotics, drones, and materials, and to strengthen connections with system integrators, thereby expanding the industrial ecosystem in a meaningful way.

Yoo Sejong, Director of the Future Strategic Industries Division of Daejeon City, stated, "This selection is a meaningful achievement that combines Daejeon's research and development capabilities with its defense industry foundation. Based on interregional cooperation, we will strengthen full-cycle support for startups from defense industry entry to growth, accelerating the creation of an advanced defense industry ecosystem and establishing Daejeon as a leading defense industry hub city."

Daejeon Technopark and the Agency for Defense Development are scheduled to supplement the project execution plan and sign agreements in early May, after which they will officially begin supporting companies.

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