The Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development (KISED) announced Tuesday that it is recruiting demand companies for "Innowave," an open innovation program supporting joint demonstration and commercialization between deep-tech startups and large enterprises, mid-sized companies, public institutions, and local governments.
The Deep-Tech Project is an initiative to intensively nurture startups with frontier technologies that will lead the future of the national economy, including artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, mobility, and eco-friendly energy. Innowave supports startup technologies in connecting to actual industrial fields and markets through open innovation collaboration.
KISED has supported collaboration between demand companies and startups through Innowave since 2024. The program has produced various outcomes, including joint technology development, commercialization contracts, and investment attraction. Collaboration demand from both demand companies and startups continues to grow. Last year, KISED introduced a "one-team consortium" approach, in which demand companies and startups jointly plan and present collaboration projects, boosting partnership potential.
This year, while maintaining the collaboration method, KISED will expand the scale of support and raise collaboration funding from a maximum of 50 million won to up to 100 million won. In addition, this year's Innowave has expanded participation to include not only deep-tech startups but also companies selected for the Tech Incubator Program for Startups (TIPS).
Selected demand companies will identify partner firms through 1:1 matchmaking events with startups and jointly prepare collaboration proposals. At Innowave Day, demand companies and startups will jointly present their collaboration plans, and 50 final consortiums will be selected through evaluation. The final consortiums will carry out joint technology development from July to December. KISED plans to support collaboration projects leading to purchases and investments, not only by providing collaboration funds but also through the use of demand company infrastructure, provision of demonstration environments, technology protection support, and follow-up commercialization linkages.
The consortiums will later present their collaboration outcomes and future commercialization plans at the "Innowave League," scheduled for December. KISED plans to provide incentives to outstanding consortiums and review investment linkage opportunities by leveraging its deep-tech venture capital (VC) membership network.
"This year, we will significantly expand the scale of support and collaboration funding to actively help projects lead to market outcomes such as purchases, adoption, and investment, rather than stopping at proof of concept (PoC)," KISED President Yoo Jong-pil said. "We hope various demand companies, including large and mid-sized firms, hospitals, public institutions, and local governments, will participate to discover new innovation projects with startups and create successful collaboration cases in future new industries."
