RIYADH: South Korea is keen to explore the opportunities available in Saudi Arabia’s startup ecosystem, said a top official while speaking at Biban 23, the region’s largest startup, SMEs, and entrepreneurship conference, currently underway in the Saudi capital. South Korea’s Minister of SMEs and Startups Young Lee stated: “I hope that Biban 2023 could become our launchpad where innovative Korean startups could make their way into the Saudi market, and startups of both countries could flourish together.” Lee briefed the conference attendees about the dynamic and innovative Korean startup ecosystem — which ranked 10th in the world in 2022 — and the country’s startup policies. Startups like NAVER, Kakao, Coupang, Nexon, and NCSOFT matured into unicorns, and are now driving the Korean economy. “In CES 2023, we witnessed the biggest number of Korean startups being awarded,” the minister added. “Only seven startups were selected in 2019 while in 2023 111 Korean companies have been chosen. It means that 1 in 4 awarded companies at CES 2023 were Korean startups, and more than 80 percent of the awarded Korean companies were startups,” she added. The minister noted that Korea ranked one of the top 10 countries globally in terms of the number of unicorn companies. In addition, “the size of venture domestic investment in Korea reached $13.7 billion as of 2021 from $4.8 billion in 2018.” The East Asian country currently has 10,000 startup and venture investment centers for incubating Korean startups internationally, and its plans to raise that number. Lee further noted that “the Korean government is committed to nurturing newly emerging deep-tech startups. We plan to put $1.6 billion in supporting their commercialization and research and development.” Being held under the theme “Attract-Connect-Achieve,” Biban 23 features over 350 speakers sharing their insights about the SME ecosystem globally and regionally.