The Ministry of SMEs and Startups said on the 28th it selected 100 people, including prospective founders, who passed the first-round document screening for "Startup for all: social innovation social venture league."
The social innovation social venture league is a program that identifies founders who will solve social problems with innovative technology and ideas and nurtures them into social ventures.
There are five support categories: closing gaps in community care and expanding jobs and social participation; improving energy expense and efficiency for small business sites and vulnerable groups; boosting the productivity of small merchants and small and medium-sized enterprises using artificial intelligence (AI); and promoting resource circulation and solving waste problems.
In the first-round evaluation, 33 prospective founders and 67 startup corporations were selected. By category, closing gaps in community care was the largest with 28, followed by enhancing the productivity and innovation capacity of small merchants and small and medium-sized enterprises using AI with 27.
Among the selected startup corporations, there are five social ventures; three preliminary or certified social enterprises; and 26 venture corporations. Key proposals included recognition of care behaviors and data building using vision AI, management of existing facilities based on patch-type AI, and river trash treatment combining satellite imagery and AI.
Those who passed the document screening will receive 2 million won in impact activity support. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) will select about 40 people through a presentation evaluation on the 10th to 11th of next month, and plans to provide mentoring worth 5 million won per person for solution advancement, on-site applicability review, and the use of public data.
About 10 final selectees will be chosen through a public presentation evaluation held at "2026 venture week" in December. Selected founders will receive up to 1.5 billion won in commercialization funds.
No Yong-seok, first vice minister of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS), said, "Corporations that solve the biggest social problems can grow into the best innovation corporations and preempt future markets," and added, "We will spare no policy support so that founders taking on social problems can leap into social ventures that combine innovativeness and growth potential."