Gyeonggi Innovation Center Launches 'KB Unicorn Club 5th Cohort'

## KB Unicorn Club 5th Cohort, A Powerful Leap Towards the Future Begins! **The KB Unicorn Club, a gateway for early-stage startups dreaming of innovation, successfully held its 5th cohort launch ceremony, opening the prelude to a new growth journey. The 10 selected companies, having overcome fierce competition of 21:1, gathered at Pangyo Startup Zone to strengthen their aspirations for the future and announce their potential as innovative leaders who will drive the Korean economy.** The 'KB Unicorn Club', ambitiously co-operated by Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy & Innovation and KB Kookmin Bank since 2021, is a core program that discovers promising early-stage startups in new industries and supports their continuous growth. Beyond simple support, it generates remarkable achievements such as practical investment attraction, TIPS (Tech Incubator Program for Startup) recommendations, and connections for global market expansion, thus invigorating the startup ecosystem. To date, a cumulative total of 56 companies have realized their potential through this program, proving that the KB Unicorn Club is one of the most effective platforms for the successful scale-up of startups in South Korea. This 5th cohort launch ceremony held significance beyond just being an event. The 10 finally selected companies – namely UbiLab, PIXEL, CancerBreaker, Dailypay, SIRINUS, Clinkers, Textinum, HexAI Labs, Forest Jalan, and SEMIAI – each with their unique business items and innovative visions, gathered to share their business status and engage in in-depth discussions about their future direction. Officials from Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy & Innovation and KB Kookmin Bank, along with representatives from various related organizations, attended to celebrate and encourage their new beginnings. Notably, at the ceremony, 'Korea Housing Information', a graduate company from the KB Unicorn Club's 2nd cohort, presented its success story, drawing keen interest from attendees. The vivid growth story of the senior company served as a great motivation for the 5th cohort selection companies and powerful evidence of how the practical support provided by the program can lead to a company's leap forward. It was a moment where one could witness the strong enthusiasm of the 5th cohort companies to follow in the footsteps of their predecessors on the path of innovation and growth. An official from the Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy & Innovation emphasized through this launch ceremony that "the selected companies have now embarked on their full-fledged growth journey," and promised, "We will continue to spare no effort in providing practical and comprehensive support for the scale-up of early-stage companies based on public-private cooperation." This indicates the strong commitment of the KB Unicorn Club to not merely provide financial assistance but to offer an acceleration program encompassing all aspects of a company's growth, helping them successfully establish themselves in the market and expand to a larger scale. The 'KB Unicorn Club 5th Cohort' program plans to operate a full-cycle acceleration program for the selected companies. This signifies integrated support covering all stages necessary for corporate growth, from item advancement to business model refinement and investment attraction strategy formulation. The public-private cooperation model, combining the expertise of the Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy & Innovation and KB Kookmin Bank's robust financial infrastructure, will provide a solid foundation for early-stage startups to overcome various challenges and ultimately grow into unicorn companies. Starting with this launch ceremony, the KB Unicorn Club 5th cohort companies are ready to grow into key players who will lead the future of South Korea based on their innovative ideas and technological capabilities. Their powerful leap will inject new vitality into the stagnant economy and solve various societal problems with innovative solutions. We look forward to the remarkable achievements and future that the KB Unicorn Club 5th cohort will create.