LAB Start-Up 2024, Ministry of Science and ICT laboratory startup festival held

The Ministry of Science and ICT held the ‘Laboratory Startup Festival「LAB Start-Up 2024」(hereinafter referred to as the ‘Laboratory Startup Festival’) at Korea University’s SK Future Hall on Wednesday, January 31.

The ‘Laboratory Startup Festival’, hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and organized by the Science and Technology Commercialization Agency and the Korea Youth Entrepreneurship Foundation, is the 6th event this year, starting in 2019. It is an event for those who have attempted to start a business through the Ministry of Science and ICT’s Laboratory Startup Support Project ^* over the past year. This is an opportunity to share with the public the results of the start-up team’s start-up preparation activities over the past year and to receive evaluations for excellent start-up performance.

This year, under the theme of ‘Science and technology become the protagonists of startups!’, 40 universities and 165 startup teams ^* and investment experts (VCs, venture investment companies/ACs, startup planners), business officials, institutional officials, event attendees, etc. It was a great success with over 500 people attending.

The event will be held on the 30th as a preliminary event including the exhibition contest finals and IR (Investor Relations, corporate information activity) contest finals, and as the main event on the 31st, the first part will be an award ceremony for excellent startup teams and a startup training completion ceremony, and the second part will be a senior startup exploration team CEO’s award ceremony. It will be held in the order of experience sharing and exchange events between senior and junior startup exploration teams.

At the event completion ceremony, First Vice Minister of Science and ICT Jo Seong-kyung and vice presidents of seven universities ^*  presented certificates of completion to the representative start-up teams of each university, congratulating them on their hard work in taking on the start-up challenge so far and encouraging their future growth and development as young entrepreneurs. .

An exhibition and IR (corporate information activity) contest (finals) that allowed professional investors to verify commercialization potential and investment attractiveness was held as a pre-event the day before the main event. 85 teams participated in the contest, and 32 teams advanced through the preliminary round (01.17. ~ 01.21.) to the finals (1.30.), and were evaluated by judges consisting of 5 professional investors (angel investors, AC, VC, etc.) 12 final winning teams (Appendix 2) were selected through .

In the exhibition field, the contest was held by the Metacloud Team (Pohang University of Science and Technology Innovation Group), which was founded with nano-patterned surface mass production technology, and in the IR (corporate information activity) field, by the Eco-friendly Recycled Battery Team (founded with eco-friendly waste battery recycling technology using microorganisms). Korea University Innovation Group) and Moba Wheel Korea Institute of Science and Technology Innovation Group, which started a business with non-contact road slippage detection technology, each won the grand prize.

There are also events prepared for not only professional investors but also the general public to evaluate and support startup teams. Visit the booth displaying the achievements of 85 startup teams in the lobby on the first floor of the SK Future Hall, and run a mock investment event where you can directly invest in excellent startup teams with high growth expectations, and participate in the top 7 startup teams with the highest investment amount. Awarded the University President’s Award.

In addition, a commendation ceremony was held by the Minister of Science and ICT to four people who contributed to the creation of excellent results by supporting the start-up exploration activities of the start-up exploration teams and commending their contributions. Next, a ceremony was held to cheer on the challenges and future of the laboratory startup exploration teams, and the first part of the event came to an end.

Cho Seong-kyung, First Vice Minister of Science and ICT, said, “Laboratory startups are evidence of how science and technology can improve our lives by meeting imagination, and are an important means and driving force for creating social and economic value.” “Startup Exploration Team “I promise that the Ministry of Science and ICT will be a strong support in your startup journey,” he said, encouraging the startup team.

Editor Miso