Korea to build startup campuses in Seoul, Busan by 2026

South Korea will establish startup hubs in Seoul and Busan, the country’s largest port city, by the first half of 2026 to build Asia’s No. 1 startup ecosystem, said Oh Young-joo, the minister of SMEs and Startups, on Thursday.

The hubs will serve as Korea's Station F, the world’s largest startup campus in Paris. One of them will be located in a district near Hongik University, called Hongdae, a trendy, lively area with street markets. The startup campus near Hondae will focus on nurturing deep tech venture companies.

The other campus will be built in an abandoned warehouse in Busan North Port. The warehouse there was a symbol of South Korea’s export-led industrialization. Busan's historic North Port is a gateway to Japan and North America.

Station F is a startup community that provides space and connects venture companies with potential partners and investors in customized accelerating programs to over 1,000 startups.

Oh said in a media briefing that the Hongdae area in Seoul is an ideal location for a startup community due to its proximity to other leading universities with a large number of foreign students, or a pool of global talent for the venture firms in that area.

Busan's North Port has the commercial, cultural and outdoor infrastructure necessary to attract young and innovative startups, as well as easy accessibility to public transportation.

The two startup hubs will be operated as connected communities that run joint programs and offer joint memberships. Oh added that the two hubs will together house about 400 deep tech startups by 2027.

The startup hub to be built in the Seoul Metropolitan Area by 2026 differs from the Seoul Unicorn Startup Hub that Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon announced last year would be located in Seongsu-dong by 2030 to become the world's largest startup community. 

Write to Eun-Yi Ko at koko@hankyung.com
 

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.