The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that it held the '2025 Super Gap Startup Renovation Day' event at the Fairmont Ambassador Hotel in Seoul on the 13th.
This event was organized to share the results of the 'Super Gap Startup 1000+ Project' that has been underway since 2023 for newly established super gap startups and to announce new global scale-up initiatives.
The event began with Minister Oh Youngju presenting plaques to 10 representative super gap startups selected this year in the top 10 fields, including MangoBoost in the system semiconductor sector. This year, 182 startups were selected after recruiting deep tech startups through various methods, including public recruitment, private validation, and departmental recommendations, with a competition ratio of 13.7 to 1.
The selected startups will receive direct support of up to 600 million won in commercialization funds and additional evaluation will determine up to 600 million won in research and development (R&D) funding, totaling 1.1 billion won, and they can also receive support linked to policy funds, guarantees, and exports.
They will also receive support for technology development and commercialization through collaboration with large corporations and specialized agencies, such as the System Semiconductor Promotion Center at Seoul National University and the Artificial Intelligence Industry Convergence Project Group, utilizing infrastructure like research equipment, investment attraction, and global expansion.
Additionally, the results of the 'Super Gap Project,' initiated in 2023, were announced. A total of 407 super gap startups received support through this project, among which two companies, including Rebellion, grew into deep tech unicorns. Furthermore, 15 potential unicorn companies with a corporate value exceeding 100 billion won were born.
Furthermore, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced new support policies for global scale-ups. First, in four super gap areas, including bio and robotics, a new 'Super Gap Link-Up' program will be established to support collaboration between startups and anchor institutions such as large corporations in their respective fields for sales channels, investment attraction, and global expansion.
Next, to accelerate investment attraction for super gap startups, a consortium composed of venture capital (VC) firms holding major deep tech funds will be established under the name 'Super Gap VC Membership' to host regular investment attraction events and provide open innovation opportunities.
Finally, through a consortium composed of major securities firms that act as underwriters for initial public offerings (IPOs) and securities firms specializing in small and venture enterprises, the 'Super Gap Tech·IPO Connect' program will be established and promoted to provide focused support for the IPOs of super gap startups to strengthen global scale-up.
Minister Oh Youngju noted, 'Although the Ministry of SMEs and Startups' Super Gap Project has generated many results for deep tech startups over the past two years, there are still requests for more support on the ground.' She added, 'The ministry will continue to provide comprehensive support for various policies to help our country's deep tech startups leap to become global unicorns using the Super Gap Project as a stepping stone.'