The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 12th that it held the 'Baby Unicorn Performance Sharing and Award Ceremony' at the L Tower in Gangnam, Seoul, to disseminate the achievements of the Global Unicorn Project.
The Baby Unicorn Fostering Project aims to discover baby unicorn corporations that have verified innovative business models and growth potential and nurture them into prospective unicorn corporations valued at over 100 billion won, providing up to 300 million won in market development funds and up to 5 billion won in special guarantees.
The Ministry supported 300 corporations from 2020 to 2024, and as of the end of 2024, performance measurements revealed that sales increased by 137.6% and employment numbers rose by 23.6% compared to the time of selection. Among them, 212 corporations attracted follow-up investments totaling 2.49 trillion won. Notably, 13 corporations were selected as prospective unicorns, and 9 corporations were listed on the KOSDAQ market.
During the event, alongside the performance sharing session, success stories of baby unicorns such as Elspace, which has achieved a corporate value exceeding 100 billion won, and Czech, which attracted an investment of 7 billion won, were also presented. Additionally, investment IR was conducted for 49 newly selected baby unicorn corporations this year.
Kim Bong-deok, Director of Venture Policy at the Ministry, noted, 'The Baby Unicorn Fostering Project has established itself as a representative scale-up program by generating multiple successful IPOs and prospective unicorn growth cases' and added, 'The Ministry will continue to actively contribute to establishing a complete venture ecosystem through support for baby unicorn corporations.'