The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Oh Young-joo) and the Korea Institute for Startups and Entrepreneurship Development (President Yoo Jong-pil) announced that they plan to operate the 'K-Startup Integrated Hall' at 'VIVA Technology 2025 (hereinafter VIVATECH)' to be held in Paris, France from June 11 to June 14 (local time).
France's VivaTech is considered one of the top three global technology exhibitions along with CES in the U.S. and MWC in Spain. It is the largest startup exhibition in Europe and has been hosted by French media companies Groupe Les Echos and Publicis Groupe since 2016. Last year, Elon Musk (Tesla, CEO) and Linda Yaccarino (X, CEO) participated, and 160 countries, 400 speakers, 13,500 startups, and over 165,000 visitors participated.
Since Korea was selected as VivaTech's 'Country of the Year' in 2023, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Korea Institute of Startups and Entrepreneurship Development have established the K-Startup Integrated Hall every year and have been providing programs such as customized business matching and local exchange events to select promising startups hoping to advance into Europe.
In 2025, the theme was ‘New Horizons for Innovation’, focusing on the impact of technology, adding topics such as future industries and ethical governance, and Canada was selected as ‘Country of the Year’.
In particular, for the operation of this integrated center, five participating organizations, including the Startup Promotion Agency, Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy and Innovation, Chungnam Center for Creative Economy and Innovation, Incheon Technopark, and Seoul AI Hub, signed a business agreement on the 18th (Friday) and plan to support startups by utilizing their own unique capabilities, such as strengthening their pre-capacity, to advance into Europe.
Yoo Jong-pil, the president of the Korea Institute for Startups and Entrepreneurship Development, said, “France has established itself as the center of technological innovation in Europe and is a stepping stone for startups to enter the European market,” and added, “We will continue to promote the excellence of ‘K-Startup’ to the world and actively support startups to explore overseas markets.”
Meanwhile, in order to support startups’ entry into overseas markets, the Startup Promotion Agency supported their participation in the Startup Mahakumbh (April) exhibition in India and VIVA Technology (June) exhibition in France in the first half of this year.
In order to support excellent startups participating in Singapore SWITCH (scheduled for October), Saudi Arabia BIBAN (scheduled for November), and the US CES exhibition (scheduled for January 26) in the second half of the year, we plan to recruit participating organizations to operate each integrated hall in April. More information can be found on the K-Startup website.
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