For cultural content companies, if the core competitiveness lies in the content itself, such as copyrights, rather than technology, they should consider an exit strategy through growth track or M&A, rather than a technology-specific listing.

The Culture, Sports, and Tourism Technology Promotion Center, affiliated with the Korea Creative Content Agency, held the "Cultural Technology Growth UP Investment Consultation Session" on the 12th, providing practical investment guidelines to startups and venture companies related to cultural content.

The 'Cultural Technology Growth UP Investment Consultation Meeting' was established to support the investment maintenance and strengthening of commercialization capabilities of cultural technology research and development institutions by providing 1:1 consultations with investors and IR pitching consulting to R&D institutions with excellent corporate capabilities, technological competitiveness, and marketability to promote commercialization of R&D institutions participating in cultural, sports, and tourism R&D projects.

The event that day consisted of special lectures and 1:1 investment consultations.

1:1 investment consultation is provided by the Korea Creative Content Agency's investment fund management company, the culture, sports, tourism, and copyright investment fund management company, the Seoul Content Investment Council's investment review team, and the mother fund's cultural account investment business participation. About 10 investment reviewers from investment agencies participated, and 1:1 consultations were conducted by matching investment reviewers from at least three investment institutions per research and development institution.


Shin Jeong-mu, team leader at the Culture, Sports and Tourism Technology Promotion Center, said, “It is important to widely publicize the concept of culture and arts in relation to cultural content technology, but what is more important is the growth of the industry and securing the self-sufficiency of companies.” He added, “This is also connected to the basic goal of national R&D, and I hope that this event will serve as a place for companies to strengthen their self-sufficiency and for investors to have investment opportunities.”

The special lecture was given by Won Jong-cheol, a patent attorney at the Korea Invention Promotion Association, introducing the ‘Technology Special Listing Trend.’

Attorney Won emphasized that technology-specific listings are becoming a key path for venture and innovative companies to grow, attract investment, and exit through an IPO (initial public offering).

Technology-specific listing is a system that provides listing opportunities to companies with recognized technological prowess and growth potential by relaxing existing financial requirements.

Unlike general listings, listing is possible with equity capital of 1 billion won and market capitalization of 9 billion won, but must pass a technical evaluation by a professional evaluation agency.

In this evaluation, one of the two agencies must receive an A grade and the other must receive a BBB grade or higher. Foreign companies require an A rating from both agencies.


Attorney Won explained, “There are two tracks for technology-specific listings: innovative technology companies and business model companies, but in reality, it is mainly used by innovative technology companies with outstanding technological prowess,” adding, “It is rare for business model companies to be listed.”

Recently, a special listing system for unicorns has been introduced, allowing companies with a market capitalization of 1 trillion won or more (KOSPI) or 500 billion won or more (KOSDAQ) to be listed without a technology evaluation or pass an evaluation by just one institution.

The number of companies listed under the technology special listing system in the KOSDAQ market increased from 31 in 2021 to 28 in 2022 and 42 in 2023, but decreased slightly to 23 in 2025 (as of the third quarter).

Attorney Won stated, “Although there are voices in the field saying that listing screening has become more stringent recently, technology-specific listings remain an important growth path for innovative companies.”

The technology assessment process includes selecting a lead manager, assigning an evaluation agency through the Korea Exchange, submitting evaluation materials, conducting an on-site inspection, and verifying the evaluation results.

A total of 25 evaluation agencies, including private TCBs and public institutions, have been designated, and assignments are made randomly.

The evaluation items consist of technicality (completeness, reliability, differentiation, difficulty of imitation, technological infrastructure) and marketability (market size, competitiveness, commercialization readiness, product competitiveness). Since each evaluation agency has different evaluation models and weights, the experience and consulting of the organizer are important.

In particular, with the recent introduction of industry- and technology-specific evaluation indicators, companies must strategically select indicators that are advantageous to them.

Attorney Won advised, "Rather than blindly selecting hot technology indicators like AI and big data, we should carefully select areas where we have real strengths."

In practice, it is important to prepare in advance through preliminary evaluation (consulting).

The company's strengths and growth potential must be effectively appealed to in on-site inspections and presentations, and business plans and sales forecasts must be supported by objective supporting evidence.

Since the data requested by each evaluation agency may vary, it is advantageous to actively utilize the experience of the organizer.

Although listing screening criteria have become stricter due to recent issues such as sales inflating by some listed companies, the essence of technology-based listing lies in "future growth potential."

Attorney Won emphasized, “Technology-specific listing is a system that companies can pursue if they have high growth potential even if their sales are low,” and “If they receive a high rating in the technology evaluation, it can have a positive impact on the success of the IPO.”

Regarding cultural content companies, he added that if the core competitiveness lies in the content itself, such as copyrights rather than technology, it is necessary to consider an exit strategy through a growth track or M&A rather than a technology-specific listing.

Meanwhile, the second 'Cultural Technology Growth Up Investment Consultation' will be held in Conference Room 8 of the Science and Technology Convention Center on November 19th.

The second event will feature a special lecture on "Content Company Investment Attraction Strategies" and one-on-one investment consultations. Additionally, ‘IR Pitching/Making’ will be held in Small Conference Room 2.

To participate in the event, please contact Insight Biz Lab Director Seongyoon Cho (mychosy@technobank.co.kr, 070-4047-5770).