The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Oh Young-joo, hereinafter referred to as the Ministry of SMEs and Startups) announced that the first audition for the 'Strong Small Business Growth Support Project' to grow small business owners with creative ideas into LICORNs will be held from April 28 to May 23 in various locations across the country, including Seoul (Myeong-dong), Sejong (Jochiwon), and Suwon (Jangan-gu).
The 'Strong Small Business Growth Support Project' is a program that supports promising small business owners based on lifestyle culture to develop products and services that are differentiated from existing ones through collaboration with creators, startups, and small business owners in other fields. It is divided into five types: lifestyle, local brand, long-lived small business owner, global, and online seller.
This year, a total of 7,147 small business owners applied, recording a high competition rate of 32.5:1. 640 promising small business owners were selected through in-depth evaluations starting in March, and 390 teams from 4 types, excluding online seller types, will participate in this first audition.
The first audition for the long-lived small business owner type will be held from April 28 to 30 at 111CM in Jangan-gu, Suwon-si, and for the lifestyle type, from May 12 to 16 for 5 days at 1927 Art Center in Jochiwon, Sejong-si. The first audition for the global type will be held from May 19 to 21 at Community House Masil in Jung-gu, Seoul, and for the local brand type, from May 19 to 23 at the 1 Euro Bukgajwa Project in Bukgajwa-dong, Seoul.
The 160 teams selected through this audition will be provided with up to 60 million won in business model advancement funds and given the opportunity to participate in the final audition scheduled for August.
If selected through the final audition, you can receive additional support of up to 40 million won in commercialization funds, and you can also receive preferential points when applying for private investment-linked matching loans (Lips I) and innovative business investment-linked support (Lips II) in the future.
In particular, starting this year, the Korea Economic Association, the representative economic organization of the Republic of Korea, will participate and support the joint hosting of final auditions and production of broadcast videos, and will support the challenges of strong small business owners through networking events with large corporations and mutual distribution sales fairs.
Lee Dae-geon, the director of the Small Business Policy Bureau, emphasized, “Recently, food, cosmetics, and clothing made by our small business owners have been gaining great popularity not only domestically but also internationally,” and “We will continue to discover small business owners armed with entrepreneurial spirit and creativity and transform them into lifestyle innovation companies that create differentiated products and services.”
- See more related articles
You must be logged in to post a comment.