The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 23rd that it has selected 38 software (SW) companies to newly participate in the 'SW High Growth Club' project.

This project is a project that discovers high-growth companies with high growth potential and preliminary high-growth companies within 3 to 7 years of business and supports autonomous task implementation and global growth programs for up to two years. This year, a total of 18 billion won will be provided to a total of 95 companies. . High-growth companies are defined as companies with an average annual employment or sales growth rate of 20% or more over three years.

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, 121 companies that received customized support for corporate innovation and globalization through this project last year achieved sales of 329.9 billion won and investment attraction of 242.4 billion won, and created 2,140 new jobs. There were also companies that achieved success, such as being listed on KOSDAQ.

'Rowan', which achieved more than five times the sales compared to the previous year by developing a digital dementia prevention program, 'ENI', which developed a kitchen automation solution and generated sales and exports for the first time since its founding, and attracted overseas investment worth 3.6 billion won, and SW in the space industry A representative example is 'Contek', a startup listed on the KOSDAQ in November of last year.

This year, a recruitment announcement was made to select 38 new companies in addition to the 57 companies that have been continuously applying since last year, and a total of 374 companies applied, reaching a competition rate of 9.8 to 1. Among these, in order to select promising companies with high growth potential and a high possibility of success in overseas expansion, companies with high global orientation and innovation were selected through a review of private sector experts related to investment attraction and business incubation.

The companies selected as high-growth companies this time are △ Sharp & Company △ HubDT △ Robo Korea △ Ravel Up △ Kiwon Tech △ LK Ventures △ S&P Lab △ Nubi Lab △ Arion Communications △ Skywalk △ Keygl △ Komachine △ SC Solution Global There are 17 places including △Nota △Near Lab △Inventis △O2O.

As for the technology type of companies selected this year, the artificial intelligence (AI) field accounted for the largest proportion with 27 companies (71%). This was followed by four Internet of Things (IoT) companies (11%) and two cloud companies (5%). Among the selected companies, 20 companies have software-as-a-service (Saas)-related services, accounting for 52.6% of all companies.

Selected companies will receive support ranging from KRW 100 million to KRW 300 million per year in business funds to enable them to carry out tasks independently designed by the company, as well as customized mentoring by experts, networking with major domestic and foreign companies, and investment attraction support activities.

Gyu-cheol Hwang, Director of Software Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, "In order to secure the global competitiveness of the SW industry, it is important to actively discover and closely support promising companies aiming for the global market in new industries such as AI and SaaS." “We will actively support ‘SW High Growth Club’ companies to accelerate their growth in the global market through various supports such as customized mentoring,” he said.