-"we support prospective entrepreneurs in achieving successful startups and sustainable growth"
-By connecting space, funding, talent, investment, and global expansion into a single, continuous flow, the program enables the practical completion of growth for prospective entrepreneurs
-By connecting funding, space, people, and networks into a single growth flow, the program increases the likelihood of success for prospective entrepreneurs
-By operating a practical investment attraction process conducted with actual investors, rather than a ‘practice IR’ program
-By supporting technology advancement and professional talent matching through linkage with universities’ R&D-specialized personnel
In particular, its achievements have been remarkable in recent years. Kwangwoon University has been selected for major national projects, including the Seoul Campus Town initiative, the Ministry of Education’s RISE program, and designation as a Semiconductor Specialized University, establishing a comprehensive innovation model that connects education, research, and entrepreneurship. Through this process, the university is building a new type of regional startup platform where academia, local communities, industries, and investment institutions collaborate organically.
The Industry-Academia Cooperation Foundation is simultaneously carrying out various government- and municipality-linked programs, including the Pre-Startup Package, Makerspace, BRIDGE 3.0, Lab-Based Startup Leading University Program, and the Seoul Campus Town project. Among them, being selected in 2025 as the host university for the Pre-Startup Package Deep Tech Track holds significant meaning. Through this program, the university is providing intensive support for specialized startups in the fields of AI, big data, and semiconductors, further strengthening Kwangwoon University’s ICT capabilities.
The Pre-Startup Package is currently operated by the Kwangwoon University NCI Startup Package Project Group. Cheol-hwan Park, Head of the Kwangwoon University NCI Startup Package Project Group, said, “By operating the Pre-Startup Package of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, we play a role in identifying creative and capable prospective entrepreneurs and supporting and nurturing them in a systematic manner”, adding, “Through various programs such as business model (BM) review and advancement, capacity-building programs, networking events with diverse participants, performance sharing, and IR demo days, we support prospective entrepreneurs in turning their business ideas into reality and building sustainable business models.”
“The Pre-Startup Package program is a government-supported initiative designed to identify and nurture prospective entrepreneurs who have innovative technologies or business ideas. A key feature of the program is that anyone with an idea and the willingness to execute can apply, as it targets prospective entrepreneurs who have not yet registered a business. Selected prospective entrepreneurs are provided with startup commercialization funding of up to KRW 100 million, along with education and mentoring support. In addition, rather than providing funding alone, the program supports the entire pre-startup process step by step, including how to concretize business plans, how to develop an MVP, and how to enter the market. Kwangwoon University views the Pre-Startup Package program as a platform for discovering promising prospective startups and growing together with them. Based on a hyperconnected collaborative structure involving the public, private, and academic sectors, the university operates a startup support system that enables innovative prospective and early-stage startups to challenge global markets.
Ultimately, we believe that the success of each individual prospective startup team, one by one, comes together to build a larger startup ecosystem. Therefore, through the Pre-Startup Package program, Kwangwoon University aims not only to support entrepreneurs in making a successful start, but also to build a foundation that enables them to continue growing over the long term.”
What would you identify as the key strengths of Kwangwoon University’s Pre-Startup Package program?
“The Pre-Startup Package program at Kwangwoon University is designed around the elements that entrepreneurs actually need. It is characterized by providing support across the entire process in a single, continuous flow, from immediately needed elements such as space and funding to talent, investment, and global expansion. First, in terms of space, the program provides incubation spaces and shared collaboration areas, helping entrepreneurs focus on their businesses in a relatively stable environment. In addition, R&D and marketing funding support is provided together, aiming to minimize the burdens and risks that may arise during the initial market entry process.
Another important aspect is talent and technology. By leveraging Kwangwoon University’s strengths, we support linkage with R&D-specialized personnel, ensuring that this leads in practice to technology advancement and professional talent matching.
Once the business reaches a certain stage, investment and market linkage become crucial. Therefore, through acceleration programs as well as IR sessions, demo days, and support for participation in global exhibitions, we provide startups with opportunities to meet investors and global markets directly. In particular, Kwangwoon University has been additionally selected as the managing organization for the deep tech field of the 2025 Pre-Startup Package and is currently operating the program, and through this, it is further strengthening its professional support capabilities for technology-based startups. At the same time, various startup support programs operated by Kwangwoon University’s Industry and Academic Cooperation Foundation, including Seoul Campus Town, the Kwangwoon Startup Support Center, and the Campus Town Development Project, as well as programs run by multiple local governments such as Dongdaemun-gu, Gangbuk-gu, Dobong-gu, and Guri City, are being operated in an organically linked manner centered on the Pre-Startup Package. As a result, entrepreneurs are able to participate in a single program while simultaneously leveraging a wide range of regional resources and support.
From an investment perspective, support is provided for investment linkage tailored to each growth stage, from the seed stage to Series A, through an investment network jointly established by the technology holding company and the Industry and Academic Cooperation Foundation. In addition, by jointly operating indirect investment attraction programs in collaboration with ACs, VCs, and CVCs, the program is diversifying funding channels to the greatest extent possible.
Through this structure, Kwangwoon University is building a sustainable startup growth support system that leads to tangible outcomes, providing continuous support from the early startup stage through the growth stage rather than one-off assistance.”
“The Pre-Startup Package basically recruits prospective entrepreneurs through an open call in accordance with the guidelines of the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development. Afterward, the final participating companies are selected through document screening and face-to-face presentation evaluations.
In the document and presentation evaluations, the assessment goes beyond the idea itself and comprehensively examines factors such as the entrepreneur’s individual capabilities and willingness to execute, as well as whether the business idea can work in the actual market and whether the revenue model is realistic. The degree of differentiation of the technology or service is also an important evaluation factor.
For teams that pass the document screening, we operate a newly introduced competency verification process. Through this process, we support verification of capabilities required in actual startup settings, such as the applicant’s leadership and entrepreneurial mindset, as well as the refinement and advancement of business plans. This allows prospective entrepreneurs to review their business plans once again on their own and confirm whether they are prepared as founders and organizational leaders, thereby helping their business ideas become more clearly structured and directionally defined.
The Kwangwoon University Pre-Startup Package Project Group focuses on building a foundation that enables teams with sufficient growth potential to develop into outstanding startups.”
What benefits are offered to the companies?
“Companies selected for the Kwangwoon University Pre-Startup Package receive support across four main areas. These are funding, space, people, and networks. Rather than operating these four elements separately, we place the greatest emphasis on ensuring that they are naturally connected in line with the entrepreneur’s stage of growth.
First, the commercialization funding is designed so that it can be used for areas that are immediately necessary in the startup process. It can be applied to practical areas such as prototype development, marketing execution, certification or regulatory response, and securing intellectual property rights. Above all, because the funding is provided in stages, a key feature is that entrepreneurs can continuously review their business plans and determine their own direction as they move forward.
Support for space is also something that participants strongly feel on the ground. In addition to on-campus startup incubation centers and makerspaces, teams can freely use meeting rooms and regional base centers as needed. This allows teams to continue their startup activities in a stable environment and helps reduce unnecessary early-stage cost burdens.
Support for people is also considered highly important. We provide step-by-step mentor matching with mentor groups composed of professors, external experts, senior entrepreneurs, and investors. We operate the program in a close advisory format so that issues ranging from technical aspects to commercialization, investment, and global expansion can be discussed immediately as they arise. In addition, leveraging the university’s research capabilities, linkage with R&D-specialized personnel is also proving to be practically helpful.
From a networking perspective, we provide opportunities for startups to meet investors and markets directly through acceleration programs, IR sessions, demo days, and support for participation in global exhibitions. Because each of these encounters is extremely important in the early stages of a startup, we support startups in connecting with external partners as quickly as possible.
Furthermore, starting in 2025, we are further strengthening support in the deep tech field. For technology-based startups such as those in AI, semiconductors, and big data, we are operating focused programs that include specialized mentoring, customized R&D linkage, and collaboration programs with global investors. Through these efforts, our goal is to help prospective entrepreneurs reduce trial and error in the early stages and enter the market in a more stable manner.”
“I believe that investment attraction greatly determines the growth speed of startups. That is why we do not stop at IR training alone, but design and operate the entire process as a single flow so that it can lead to actual investment. Our goal is to help prospective and early-stage startups naturally experience what they need to prepare at their current stage and how to move on to the next stage.
In IR training, we first focus on helping entrepreneurs view their own businesses again from an investor’s perspective. No matter how good the technology is, we place strong emphasis on how to develop it into a compelling business story, how large the market is and how the business can grow, and how to explain financial plans and exit strategies through a coherent narrative. We conduct the program with a strong focus on practical content so that it can be used immediately in real investment settings. Simply put, it is an intensive program that connects the IR capabilities built through training directly to the actual investment process. The program is operated over a period of approximately three months, and among the companies selected for the Pre-Startup Package, teams with high growth potential are identified and supported intensively in a cohort-based format.
The most distinctive feature of this program is that investors who have actually conducted investment reviews participate directly. Rather than a practice IR, entrepreneurs review their materials together with real investors and receive immediate feedback on their presentations. As a result, entrepreneurs naturally gain a clearer understanding of what investors focus on, and in many cases, both the completeness of their IR materials and their investment response capabilities improve noticeably.
Ultimately, what we are aiming for is not simply a one-time investment connection, but rather creating a structure in which the business is further refined through discussions with investors and that flow can lead to follow-on investment. We operate the program so that such an investment story can be built step by step.”
“First, I feel deep gratitude and significance in the fact that the university’s wholehearted support, provided without sparing effort to create a sustainable startup environment, has led to these results. Rather than stopping at short-term outcomes, I believe that the accumulation of the university’s efforts to consistently build a foundation where prospective entrepreneurs can challenge themselves and grow in a stable manner has manifested in today’s results.
Kwangwoon University has spared no institutional and environmental support to ensure that teams with technological capabilities and growth potential can naturally expand from the pre-startup stage into research labs, industrial fields, and global markets. Beyond providing space, infrastructure, and administrative support, it was the university’s strong policy commitment and trust in enabling startups to become a process of sustainable growth rather than a one-time attempt that allowed startup teams to take bolder steps.
Such comprehensive support goes beyond simple program operation and clearly demonstrates the role that a university should play as a central actor in the startup ecosystem. As a university that grows together with the local community, Kwangwoon University has worked to strengthen its role as a startup hub in the northeastern Seoul area and the greater metropolitan region, fostering an open startup ecosystem in which universities, local governments, public institutions, and private investment institutions collaborate organically. As a result, companies participating in the Pre-Startup Package were able to naturally connect with diverse external resources and secure tangible opportunities for growth.
The Kwangwoon University Pre-Startup Package Project Group aims to position itself as a platform that builds a sustainable innovation ecosystem beyond a single support program, based on the university’s comprehensive support and trust. Going forward, on the solid foundation established by the university, we envision a platform that enables prospective entrepreneurs to challenge themselves freely and grow, going beyond a single support program to complete a sustainable innovation ecosystem, and we intend to build that foundation step by step.”
reporter jinho lee
jinho2323@hankyung.com
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