Beyond Startups to Growth: Startups' Blueprint for 'Scale-up Korea'

The Korea Startup Forum, the heart of Korea's startup ecosystem, has put forward an ambitious proposal ahead of the 21st presidential election: "Scale-up Korea: A New Republic of Korea Created by Startups." This is not merely a slogan. It is a cry embodying the urgent reality of over 2,500 startups, and a new roadmap to rescue the Republic of Korea, which is mired in low growth. It is a declaration that the growth of startups must now become the top priority that determines the nation's future. This policy proposal presents three core directions and nine specific tasks for redesigning the Republic of Korea's economy. **1. Securing Future Growth Engines:** * **Diversifying Business Models:** Reshape the economic landscape with new industries such as AI, digital healthcare, and climate tech, and secure growth engines by mandating up to 10% of 68 statutory funds for startup investments. * **Attracting Global Talent:** Foster talent as 'assets' rather than 'costs' through exceptional tax benefits and improved stock option schemes for high-level AI and software professionals. * **Building Exit Infrastructure:** Revitalize the startup ecosystem by completing a virtuous cycle of founding-growth-exit-reinvestment through active M&A and the creation of secondary funds. **2. Redesigning the Nation with Innovation Infrastructure:** * **GovTech Public Innovation:** Innovate public services through the 800 trillion KRW GovTech market, and redefine the government not as a regulator but as an innovation partner. * **Opening Public Data:** Fully open the vast public data held by the government to the private sector, utilizing it as a core resource for the development of new AI industries. * **Solving Social Problems:** Lead social innovation by introducing creative and practical solutions from startups to complex social issues such as supporting vulnerable groups, addressing regional population decline, and assisting small business owners. **3. Rebuilding Institutions with a Startup-Centric Approach:** * **Regulatory Sandbox 2.0:** Beyond the limitations of the current regulatory sandbox, establish a system where demonstration-policy-institutionalization are organically linked, and introduce a fast-track aiming for 'resolution of regulations within 100 days'. * **Startup Policy Participation:** Create an innovative structure where startups, as users and beneficiaries of the system, directly participate in policy design through parliamentary-linked organizations and policy communities. * **Enhanced Regulatory Information Accessibility:** Significantly improve accessibility so that complex regulatory information can be easily found and utilized through natural language search and keyword exploration by industry and service. The message from the Korea Startup Forum, which represents the voices of over 2,500 companies leading innovation in our daily lives, such as Toss, Coupang, and Karrot Market, is clear: "To prevent outdated regulations from impeding rapidly developing technology, precise regulatory innovation that actively reflects the voices from the field is desperately needed, and concrete action is required to build a 'truly great country for startups,' not just a 'startup nation' in name only.” This proposal goes beyond mere policy recommendations; it is a new blueprint to open the future of the Korean economy, declaring that startups will be the vanguard to pioneer that path.