Received domestic acceleration support for 3 months
Selection and awarding of 40 out of 65 overseas startups
Provision of office space and settlement support for business in Korea
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will hold the '2018 K-Startup Grand Challenge Demo Day' at the Sky31 Convention Center in Lotte Tower, Seoul, for three days from Monday, the 3rd, to Wednesday, the 5th.

The participating teams in this K-Startup Grand Challenge Demo Day consisted of 65 foreign startups in various fields such as AI, IoT, medical, and blockchain. Over the course of about three months since last August, they grew into members of the global startup community through systematic programs from six domestic accelerators, including professional mentoring, support for domestic business linkages and networking, customized consulting, and follow-up investment.

The final 40 teams selected as outstanding teams through this Demo Day will be provided with office space and settlement support to enable them to commercialize their startup items in Korea, such as through collaboration with domestic companies.

In addition, the top four teams will be selected and awarded prize money, and the grand prize winner will be awarded the Minister of SMEs and Startups Award. The prize money is 11,000 won for 1st place, 44 million won for 2nd place, 22 million won for 3rd place, and 6.6 million won for 4th place, and settlement support funds of 25 million won will be provided to each of the final 40 teams.

The 'K-Startup Grand Challenge' is a program that selects promising overseas startups and provides them with incubation infrastructure, mentoring, connections with domestic companies, and settlement support at the Pangyo Startup Campus.

Startups that participated in the last two competitions have achieved results such as attracting a total of $26 million in investment and securing over 300 MOUs and partnerships.

Representative examples include AI-based travel service company Travelplan, serving robot company Bear Robotics, smart home solution company Igloo Home, and IoT sensor company IsItFresh, all of which are actively operating in their respective fields.

In this year's third edition, 1,771 teams from 108 countries applied, an increase of 256 teams compared to the previous year, confirming the intense interest and enthusiasm of foreign startups for entering the domestic market.

This year, 73 teams were selected through document screening and overseas auditions, and systematic support was provided at the Pangyo Startup Campus, including incubation infrastructure, mentoring, connections with domestic companies, and settlement-related education.

Seok Jong-hoon, Director of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, stated, “We will spare no support possible to enable overseas startup teams with excellent human resources and capabilities to settle in Korea through the K-Startup Grand Challenge and create new added value, such as hiring domestic personnel.”