Soft Squared ( CEO Lee Ha-neul), which relocated to Busan with the support of Busan Workation operated by Busan Creative Economy Innovation Center (CEO Kim Yong-woo, hereinafter referred to as Busan Changgyeong ), was selected as the 7th baby unicorn in the Busan region, officially receiving recognition for its technological prowess and market expandability of its B2B-based development team matching and operation service.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups' 'Baby Unicorn 200 Development Project' is a program introduced to discover and intensively develop promising startups. This project selects startups with a high potential to grow into unicorn companies in the future and provides comprehensive support for commercialization funds, technology development, and investment attraction. As of 2025, 50 companies were selected as 'Baby Unicorns' through a comprehensive review of technological prowess, marketability, growth potential, and global expansion capabilities.
With this selection, Softsquared has become the seventh baby unicorn company in the Busan area, and is a rare case of a non-metropolitan company among the companies selected, which are concentrated in the metropolitan area, proving the growth potential of regional startups.
Softsquared is a startup founded in 2019, and operates a B2B-based development team operation platform called 'Gritzy' that revolutionizes the way companies hire IT personnel. Based on a pool of over 5,000 verified developers and designers, it forms an optimized team according to the purpose and situation of the corporate project and provides a transparent collaboration environment with periodic progress reports. It has grown rapidly by solving problems such as communication errors, technology verification failures, and development personnel disconnection that frequently occurred in the existing development agency market.
In addition, by participating in the Busan-type workation currently being operated in Busan Changgyeong, the headquarters were relocated to Busan in July 2024, and through the B.Startup PIE placement program, 6 rounds of 1:1 mentoring with investors, private meetups linked to investors, and attendance at the metropolitan demo day, the company began an investment attraction round, and has been actively supporting the company by increasing its business capabilities, such as attracting Series A bridge investment through IR pitching for each startup round at BOUNCE.
Now, we are expanding long-term collaboration with companies as IT development partners beyond simple outsourcing, and are proving our high level of reliability. This is because we are not limited to simply receiving and completing development orders, but are involved in the entire process from the planning stage, including operation, reporting, and resource reallocation, and are jointly responsible for project performance.
Recently, we also launched a 'risk management solution' that contains know-how on operating development teams. Customers can monitor the work flow, bottlenecks, and technical risks of outsourced or in-house developers based on data, and through this, prevent project delays and quality deterioration in advance.
In addition, Softsquared has proven practical usability and versatility by collaborating with companies in various industries, such as Lotte Card (building an in-house training website), OK Force (retail solution), Swing (mobility platform), and Atply (healthcare). Although these companies have different goals and development environments, they have one thing in common: they have secured development efficiency and operational stability through Grid.
This selection as Baby Unicorn is the result of Softsquared's official recognition of its expertise and growth potential as a development partner that goes beyond simple development agency and takes joint responsibility for the performance of all project processes from planning to operation and resource reallocation.
Soft Square plans to continue to grow through collaboration with various industries based on its regional strengths.
Softsquared CEO Lee Ha-neul said, “I think it is very meaningful that GRIDGE’s growth potential and technological prowess have been officially recognized through this selection as a Baby Unicorn,” and added, “We will continue to advance our technology-based management system so that companies can stably secure development personnel and operate projects efficiently, and we will also spur our global expansion.”
Busan Changgyeong CEO Kim Yong-woo said, “This case is one of the many virtuous economic cycles that workation contributes to the Busan region,” and added, “We will continue to work to expand workation so that it can attract promising companies and create employment.”
Meanwhile, Soft Squared is currently operating various development team provision methods such as all-in-one products (providing the entire process from planning to distribution) and subscription products (short-term team operation type). In addition, collaboration with the public and business sectors is steadily expanding through collaboration with various domestic organizations such as tourism company vouchers and the Seoul Business Agency.
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