Korea’s leading global startup festival COMEUP 2022, has started accepting applications from startups for its ‘COMEUP Stars’ programs, Korea Startup Forum announced. The recruitment period is from July 4  to 29, and the final 70 participating companies will be selected in early September. There will be two rounds of evaluations and results announcement in August.

COMEUP Stars is a program for startups that have the potential to lead the global startup ecosystem. The startup selection for COMEUP Stars is divided into two primary tracks, the ‘Rocket League’ and the ‘Rookie League.’ 30 rookie leagues and 40 rocket leagues, startups will be the core of COMEUP Stars and are recruited from all over the world.

Both leagues are for startups in new industries and new technologies. Rookie League is an early startup company with a cumulative investment of fewer than 1 billion won. Rocket League is an innovative growth company with an accumulated investment of 1 billion won to less than 50 billion won.

Selected companies will be provided with the opportunity to perform a pitching competition on the public IR stage ‘Startup Valley’ of COMEUP 2022, promote their company, network with investors around the world, and support in connection with investment attraction. There are also opportunities for advanced accelerating and global networking by professional investors.

‘Unicorn League’ introduced to encourage startups

This year, in addition to the existing Rookie league and Rocket league, a new Unicorn league will be established to operate a more systematic and advanced growth support program. 10 companies will be selected through the recommendation and recruitment of advisory committees such as unicorn companies and preliminary unicorn companies.

Choi Seong-jin, CEO of Korea Startup Forum said, “From this year, COMEUP Stars will go one step further from discovering and supporting innovative startups, and will play a role in spreading the challenging spirit and contribution culture of startups. I hope many startups will prove and grow from the challenge of COMEUP Stars.”

COMEUP  is the largest startup festival in Korea, held every year since 2019, and it is drawing attention in the global startup ecosystem, surpassing 130,000 cumulative visitors, 2,700 investment companies, and 280 invited speakers. COMEUP 2022 will be held for three days from November 9 to 11 at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) and online live broadcasting.

From this year on, Korea Startup Forum has been selected as the lead agency for COMEUP 2022. It will promote the startup ecosystem, select and nurture COMEUP Stars,  and strengthen exchanges between startups. In the past, COMEUP was operated mainly by the organizing committee in the form of a public-private consultation body composed of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and private experts.

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