SMEs Ministry Expands Public-Private Open Innovation... Support for 120 Startups

Support Scale Doubled

Recruitment for Strategic Task Solution and Private Sector Selection & Recommendation Tracks

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will significantly expand the scale of its “Public-Private Partnership Open Innovation” initiative, which supports collaboration between startups and large or mid-sized companies. The goal is to facilitate startups’ market entry and commercialization by providing support for technology proof-of-concept (PoC) and prototype production.

On May 19, the Ministry announced that it will begin accepting applications from participating companies for the “Strategic Task Solution” and “Private Sector Selection & Recommendation” programs under the 2026 Public-Private Partnership Open Innovation initiative, starting from May 20 until June 9.

The Public-Private Partnership Open Innovation program is designed to help large companies, mid-sized enterprises, and public institutions—referred to as demand companies—collaborate with startups to develop new technologies and services. Selected startups will be eligible for up to 140 million won in funding to support technology proof-of-concept (PoC), prototype production, and related activities.

This expansion of the program is a result of the supplementary budget allocation finalized in April. In the previous first round of recruitment, the Ministry supported a total of 60 companies—30 under the Strategic Task Solution track and 30 under the Private Sector Selection & Recommendation track. This time, the support scale will be doubled to 120 companies.

The Strategic Task Solution track involves demand companies directly presenting collaboration projects that require joint efforts, for which eligible startups are then openly recruited. Approximately 70 collaborative projects are expected to be selected through this call for applications.

The Private Sector Selection & Recommendation track is structured so that the government supports startups identified through open innovation programs operated by large companies or intermediary organizations. The Ministry plans to select about 50 such collaborative programs, actively leveraging the private sector’s capabilities in discovering promising startups.

Cho Kyungwon, Director of Startup Policy at the Ministry, stated, “For startups to grow, it is crucial not only to possess technological capabilities, but also to have opportunities for real-world validation and trusted collaboration cases in the market. Through this expanded support, we will actively help more startups collaborate with large companies and public institutions and successfully establish themselves in the market.”

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