Startup minister vows to support Korean firms' entry into overseas markets

South Korea’s startup minister Lee Young vowed to support the country’s startup ecosystem on Sunday, during her tour to the United States.

Lee spoke at a conference held at the Silicon Valley branch of the Korea Innovation Center (KIC) while meeting with industry insiders. 

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups previously announced a “Global Entry Strategy” to support both global tech giants such as Google LLC and Korean startups aiming to enter the overseas market. 

During the conference, Lee heard from founders of startups headquartered in the US, including Send Bird, MOLOCO Inc. and Bear Robotics.

South Korean startups shared their concerns regarding tight liquidity, to which Lee responded, “We will support startups’ collaboration with global companies and Korean conglomerates to encourage the latter to share their infrastructure with the startups to generate synergy.” 

Minister Lee is poised to meet with Donald Harrison, president of Global Partnerships and Corporate Development at Google, during her US visit. 

The startup ministry and Google formed a partnership in 2019 to launch and operate a program to support the South Korean startup ecosystem. 

On Tuesday, Lee will attend the Korea-US Startup Summit in New York to develop plans to support South Korean startups' entry into overseas markets.

Write to Joo-Wan Kim at kjwan@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.