The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Oh Young-joo, hereinafter referred to as the Ministry of SMEs and Startups) announced on the 17th that it is recruiting prospective entrepreneurs and startups to participate in the 2025 Preliminary Startup Package and Early-Stage Startup Package projects.
The Preliminary Startup Package and Early Startup Package are representative startup support projects of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, and select promising prospective entrepreneurs and startup companies with innovative ideas or technologies. They support startup programs by field, such as business model advancement, market entry, investment, and verification, and also support commercialization funds required for product development, production, and marketing.
The pre-startup package is for prospective entrepreneurs, and the early-stage startup package is for early-stage startups that have been established for less than 3 years.
Applications and reception are accepted on the K-Startup website. The preliminary startup package is accepted from 4:00 PM on February 24 to March 12, and the initial startup package is accepted from 4:00 PM on February 24 to March 11.
After application and reception, the final selection of support recipients will be made through document evaluation, separate procedures to verify the documents, and presentation evaluation, and support for startup programs and commercialization funds will be provided starting from the end of April.
For more detailed information, please check the recruitment notice on the K-Startup website (k-startup.go.kr) or contact the integrated call center (☏ 1357).
The details for each preliminary and initial startup package are as follows.
◆ Preliminary Startup Package
The pre-startup package is a business that supports the successful commercialization of startups of prospective entrepreneurs who wish to start technology-based businesses.
In this recruitment, approximately 780 prospective entrepreneurs will be selected, with approximately 660 people selected in the general field with no field restrictions and approximately 60 people selected in the women's and social venture fields respectively.
For selected prospective entrepreneurs, we provide programs such as mentoring, education, networking, and business model (BM) concretization necessary for the startup preparation process, and also support business start-up funds.
In particular, this year, a differentiated support system will be introduced in which selected prospective entrepreneurs will be provided with a first round of business funds (up to 20 million won) and additional funds (up to 40 million won) will be provided after a separate evaluation of the implementation of the business plan. Through this, the plan is to foster prospective entrepreneurs who can achieve sustainable growth through prepared startups.
In addition, by expanding mentoring with senior companies, opportunities to share business operation know-how with senior companies will increase.
As of the announcement date, ‘those who have not registered a business or established a corporation’ can participate, and ‘those who have not closed their business after 25.1.1.’
Meanwhile, the 'Internal Venture Fostering Program', a specialized field within the preliminary startup package, is a project that supports excellent technical personnel from companies operating an internal venture system (hereinafter referred to as operating companies) such as large, medium, small, and public institutions to take on the challenge of starting a business. Starting this year, in order to activate the participation of internal venture teams, approximately 30 internal venture teams will be publicly recruited.
In particular, we plan to greatly simplify the documents that operating companies and in-house venture teams must submit, and increase convenience for users by checking the operating company requirements after selecting an in-house venture team.
◆ Initial Startup Package
The early-stage startup package is a project that supports the stable market settlement and growth of early-stage startups (within 3 years of establishment) and plans to select approximately 430 companies this year.
For selected start-up companies, we provide programs such as verification, consulting, and initial investment attraction for market stabilization, and also provide commercialization funds (average of 70 million won).
This year, we plan to conduct in-depth interviews to deeply verify the technology and growth potential of startup items, and hold IRs by sector every six months to expand investment attraction opportunities for early-stage startups.
Kyung-won Cho, Director of Startup Policy at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, “We will actively support the challenges and innovations of prospective entrepreneurs and the growth and leap forward of startups through the pre-startup and early-stage startup packages, which are support programs for each stage of startup growth.”
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