CES Innovation Awards Winning Startups Meet Minister Oh Young-joo “Going Overseas is a Must, Not a Choice”

Minister of SMEs and Startups Oh Young-joo held a meeting with representatives of the winners of the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2024 Innovation Awards at the Seoul Creative Economy and Innovation Centre in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, on the 18th.

The meeting was held to congratulate and encourage the domestic venture and startup companies that won the Innovation Awards at CES 2024, which was held in Las Vegas, USA, from the 9th to the 12th, and to communicate with them by listening to their vivid voices.

The CES Innovation Awards are presented by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which organises the show, to the world’s leading innovative technologies and products, and are described as the “highest honour at CES”.

Prior to the meeting, Minister Oh announced that according to the Innovation Awards results released by the CTA, 128 domestic venture and startup companies won the CES Innovation Awards at CES 2024, the highest number ever.

This year, a total of 362 companies were awarded globally in 29 categories, including AI, digital health, smart cities and robotics. Of these, 150 (41.4%) were domestic companies, of which 133 were SMEs, accounting for 88.7% of the total.

Notably, 128 (85.3%) of the domestic winners were ventures or start-ups, while 106 (70.7%) were companies with less than seven years of business experience (start-ups), a record number.

A total of 33 companies from around the world won the “Best of Innovation” award, which is given to companies with the most innovative technologies and products in each of the exhibition areas. Of the 12 domestic winners, 8 were venture and startup companies (Midbar, Studio Lab, Toptable, ONECOM, Flow Studio, LORDSYSTEM, Zkrypto, Mand.ro), and the Best Innovation Award was also won by a record number of venture and startup companies this year.

“I am very proud of the great success of Korean ventures and startups in showcasing innovative technologies and products at CES 2024,” said Minister Oh Young-joo. As the Korean startup ecosystem grows in quality and quantity, I feel that the status of Korean startups on the global stage has increased,” he said, encouraging the CEOs who received the Innovation Awards.

Minister Oh then took the time to hear from the companies participating in CES 2024 about the products and technologies that won the Innovation Awards, as well as their impressions of winning the Innovation Awards. She also listened to the challenges they faced in the start-up and growth process, as well as global expansion.

The CEOs who attended the meeting also recommended continued government interest and support for ventures and start-ups to grow, leapfrog and enter the global market.

“Given the borderless digital economy and limited domestic market, overseas expansion of startups is not an option, but a necessity,” said Minister Oh Young-joo. “The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will focus its policy capabilities on the globalisation of our venture and startup ecosystem, including the ‘Startup Korea Comprehensive Plan’ announced in August last year to leapfrog Korea to become a global startup powerhouse, preparing tailored policies for startup growth by referring to opinions from the field, and creating a private-centric venture investment ecosystem through the establishment of the Startup Korea Fund and deregulation of corporate venture capital.”

In addition, Minister Oh expressed her intention to actively support the scale-up and globalisation of startups by strengthening their global capabilities and supporting overseas startups so that excellent startups can grow into global companies that go beyond Korea.