• Hongneung Venture Valley Business Incubator (Korea)

Established in 2001, Hongneung Venture Valley Business Incubator is a non-profit organization with a gross area of 3991 square meters, the main sponsor of which is Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST).

The incubator provides its clients with a wide range of services covering the whole growth stage of startups. They offer professional consultation and mentoring service through internal personnel, startup mentors( 338 mentors) and a pool of experts. They also provide training on business plan preparation, entrepreneurship development, leadership. Their network consists of 25 investment partners (Hyundai Investment Partner, Korea Technology Finance Corporation, etc.), 22 universities and research institutes (Korea University, Kyunghee University, Hanyang University, etc.) and 17 startup supporting organizations, including patent companies, accounting companies, law firms, Korea Venture Business Women’s Association, The Korean Academic Society of Business Administration. They have operating offices in China and Japan and 88 global partners to offer local support in overseas countries. And They also offer facilitation in securing funds for their clients. In the past three years, 2.7 billion KRW was invested in the new business and commercialization process, 11.2 billion KRW was financed through IR. Various kinds of innovative practice are conducted as well. For example, they pooled startup success fund from successfully graduated clients and established an investment fund for early startups (1 billion KRW, 2019.12).

By far the total number of the tenants and graduated clients of the incubator has reached 319 and 4170 jobs have been created since its inception. In recent 3 years the total annual sales of the incubator have reached $953 million. They received the best grade at operation evaluation by Ministry of SMEs and Startups(2015-2017) and startup support evaluation by Seoul Metropolitan city. Together with the government of Yantai City, China, in 2019 they jointly opened the Korea-China Startup Innovation Cooperation Center, which will serve as a base of expanding to the Chinese market. 

• Daegu University Start-up Incubator Center (Korea)

Established in 1999, Daegu University Start-up Incubator Center is a non-profit organization with a total of 85 companies having completed incubating programs within it. Currently there are 60 resident companies operating in the center, focusing on specialized fields, such as machinery, information and communication, and food/bio. It covers an area of nearly 10000 square meters and its resident occupancy area is over 6300 square meters(85 rooms).

The center actively engages in customized consulting with resident companies and operates specialized incubation programs that can improve sales and create jobs by dividing resident companies by growth stages and technology levels by operating its own corporate support portfolio-DU Fast Track system. It also supports prototype production, promotion and marketing, acquisition of IP rights, product certification and participation in fairs. The center has established a close cooperation system with startups and business support departments, such as Daegu University’s on-campus Start-up Support Group, Industrial-Academic Cooperation Group, LINC+ Project Group and Social Economic Support Group. The center operates its own cluster for the formation of organic partnerships of resident companies and supports collaboration among enterprises. It also promotes the activation of cooperative networks among enterprises by holding regular meetings, seminars, essential corporate training, IR events, etc. In addition, direct and indirect investment funds were secured by strengthening networks with investment institutions, such as Angel Club, AC and VC.

Based on these efforts, the center has earned an S rating in the BI Management Assessment administrated by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups over the past three years. The center has also obtained an S rating and was selected as the top center in the BI evaluation administrated by North Gyeongsang Province and Gyeongsang city.

In 2019 the center has made excellent achievements, including job creation (192 instances as of 2019), investment attracted (KRW 4 billion), enterprise product certification (31 cases) and application registration for IP rights (58 cases). The total sales of all resident companies as of 2019 is estimated to be KRW 20.1 billion upon which KRW 2 billion in taxes has been paid.