The South Korea Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Han Seong-sook) announced on May 19 that it is currently recruiting companies for the "Beauty" and "Platform" sectors under the ongoing "Everyone's Challenge" initiative, which began in April. This program aims to support collaboration between cosmetics giants and innovative AI startups to bolster the competitiveness of the K-Beauty sector in international markets.
The "Everyone's Challenge" initiative is designed to foster growth among startup companies in emerging industries. It encourages collaboration between strategic sector startups and leading institutions through open innovation, including validating technologies (Proof of Concept) and securing distribution channels. Focused areas include AI transformation, defense, and robotics.
The initiative specifically targets the beauty and platform sectors, aiming to combine the infrastructure and data of large cosmetics companies with the technological capabilities of startups. This collaboration is expected to strengthen the global competitiveness of K-Beauty while simultaneously expanding distribution avenues for the startups involved.
Participating big companies include Amorepacific, LG Household & Health Care, and Korea Kolmar, which will work on product and service innovation and enhancing customer experiences by applying AI technologies across the entire K-Beauty value chain.
Through this call for participation, a total of 15 companies will be selected to utilize the data related to ingredients and formulations from the demand companies, supported by AI-driven solutions in areas such as research, manufacturing, and marketing. Selected firms are set to receive up to 100 million KRW in collaboration funding, alongside support for expansion through the distribution networks and marketing channels of large corporations.
The initiative also intends to leverage data and service infrastructure related to small businesses from platform companies to facilitate digital management for these businesses, thus accelerating the commercialization of the startups involved.
Minister Han Seong-sook emphasized that open innovation is a vital growth strategy to expedite market entry for startups in rapidly evolving sectors and enhance their access to international markets. She reaffirmed the Ministry's commitment to advancing open innovation support programs across other sectors, such as biotech, climate tech, and smart cities, without delay.
