Korea Startup Forum (KOSPO), marking its 10th anniversary, looked back on its past achievements and presented a new vision for the sustained growth of the startup ecosystem.
KOSPO held a media day titled "KOSPO 10th anniversary, next chapter" at Tipstown S6 in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on the 9th, sharing achievements from the past 10 years and its future direction.
KOSPO was launched in Sep. 2016 with about 50 startups coming together. With the goal of creating "a country where it is good to start a startup," it has supported the revitalization of the startup ecosystem through improvements to regulations on new industries, policy proposals, education, and networking. After officially launching as a corporation in 2018, its membership grew from 1,000 companies in 2019 and 2,000 companies in 2022 to about 3,000 startups and innovative corporations today.
Member companies created about 56,000 jobs over the past 10 years, and cumulative investment attracted reached about 2.9 trillion won. The number of unicorn corporations increased to 17. KOSPO identified key regulatory improvement tasks such as abolishing joint surety, the three data laws, regulatory sandboxes, banning forced in-app payments, introducing dual-class shares, and institutionalizing non-face-to-face services, and proposed them to the government and the National Assembly. It also supported the growth of startups through various programs, including the global startup event "COMEUP."
At the vision declaration session, Chair Kim Jae-won emphasized, "If the past 10 years were a time that proved the existence of startups and the value of innovation, the next 10 years must be about building a structure in which startups can grow much bigger." Kim also said, "In the AI era, national competitiveness depends on how quickly new technology can meet the market and grow," adding, "The answer to becoming an AI powerhouse is becoming a startup powerhouse."
The core directions for the next 10 years presented by KOSPO are fivefold: market, regulatory innovation, diffusion, growth, and legacy. Beyond support centered on subsidies, it aims to create a market in which the government and public sector become the first customers of innovative corporations, and to improve systems so that new industries are not blocked by existing regulations.
It plans to strengthen the virtuous cycle of capital that leads to investment, exit, and reinvestment, and to foster an environment where top talent can choose startups and share in growth outcomes through compensation systems such as restricted stock units (RSUs). It also presented as a key task the establishment of a "pay it forward" ecosystem, in which the experience, capital, and entrepreneurship of senior founders are passed on to junior founders.
Former chairs, including founding Chair Kim Bong-jin, who founded Woowa Brothers and now heads Grandeclip, third Chair Park Jae-uk, who heads SOCAR and Apex Mobility, and fourth Chair Han Sang-woo, who heads Wizdom, attended the event.
In the "KOSPO special talk," they looked back on the past 10 years from the early days when even the concept of startups was unfamiliar, through periods of growth and expansion, to the investment winter, and discussed directions for the next 10 years. The gathering of chairs from the founding chair to the current chair in one place carried the meaning that KOSPO's growth has been achieved through the solidarity and succession of founders, not through any particular individual.
Marking its 10th anniversary, KOSPO will also work to spread the social value of the startup ecosystem. From the 17th to the 19th, it will hold the main event of the "KOSPO 10th anniversary social impact campaign, startups draw a village" in Jossu-ri, Hangyeong-myeon, Jeju City, Jeju Island. The aim is to connect startups' innovation capabilities with solutions to community issues and share the achievements of the startup ecosystem with the region.