The Korea Data Industry Promotion Agency announced on the 13th that it had finally selected a total of 17 companies through the '2025 DATA-Stars' contest, which discovers and supports data-based innovative startups, and the '2025 DATA-Global' contest, which supports overseas expansion of domestic data companies.
DATA-Stars is Korea's only data-specialized startup incubation program that supports the commercialization of data utilization ideas, and this year marks its 12th year. This competition (February 25-March 28) recorded a competition rate of 40:1, and 10 companies were selected through a step-by-step evaluation of documents and presentations.
Selected companies will be provided with various customized programs such as commercialization funds, venture capital (VC)-centered mentoring, data-specific consulting, and infrastructure support. This year in particular, the expansion potential of data-based industries is drawing attention as it includes technologies in various fields such as AI-based K-webtoon translation, legal assistance AI, sleep data analysis, and new drug development data management.
Meanwhile, the DATA-Stars project has supported a total of 165 promising startups so far, and some of the companies are evaluated to have achieved tangible results such as increased sales and attracting private investment, growing into unicorn companies.
DATA-Global is a program that helps domestic data companies enter the global market. In this year’s competition, 7 companies were selected with a competition rate of 16:1. These companies will receive support such as government subsidies of up to 50 million won for 6 months after the agreement, localization consulting, participation in overseas exhibitions and consultations, and connections with related global organizations.
This project is now in its 11th year of operation and has contributed to laying the foundation for the global expansion of small and medium-sized data companies.
CEO Yang Jae-soo said, “Data is a core asset in artificial intelligence and the digital industry as a whole, and is an important axis of national industrial competitiveness,” and added, “The promotion agency will continue to actively support the companies selected this time so that they can secure competitiveness in the global market and grow into data unicorn companies.”
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