Minister Lee Young, of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, speaks during a press conference about the 2022 COMEUP startup meetup event at Maru 180, a startup co-working building in southern Seoul, Tuesday. Courtesy of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups

By Baek Byung-yeul

Korea's minister of startups and small businesses vowed Tuesday to make the annual COMEUP event that promotes promising companies turn into one of the leading events for the industry in the coming years to help Korea's innovative technologies make inroads into the global market.

"We will grow COMEUP into one of the world's top five global startup events within five years," Lee Young, minister of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said during a press conference in Seoul.

The startup ministry has hosted the COMEUP event since 2019. The event was launched to promote Korea's startup ecosystem to the global market and provide local companies meetup opportunities with investors and other companies from across the world. About 50,000 people participate in the event each year.

This year's event will take place at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul for three days from Nov. 9 to 11, featuring innovative startups and investors from 15 countries.

The event had been led by the startup ministry. But the ministry said it is gradually transferring the management of the event to a private organization called Korea Startup Forum beginning this year.

Under the slogan, "We move the world," the 2022 event will be comprised of various programs promoting investor relations, offering startups a chance to pitch their products, technologies and services to global investors and help businesses build relationships.

The organizer already conducted the COMEUP Stars event that chose 70 innovative startups here and abroad. The event recorded the highest competition rate ever as 880 companies applied to take part. For those 70 companies, preliminary business matching chances and mentoring were offered last month.

This year's COMEUP event will also hold a Reverse Pitch event, letting global companies announce how they are cooperating with startups. About 20 domestic and overseas global companies, such as Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor, IBM, Google and Microsoft, will participate to discover collaborative models with startups, the organizer said.

"The startup ministry successfully held the Korea-U.S. Startup Summit in New York last month to focus on startups' global expansion. I hope the positive atmosphere could continued at this year's COMEUP event," the minister said.

"We hope that the COMEUP will serve as an opportunity for innovative startups to interact with officials of other startups around the world and advance overseas."