South Korea’s Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) is inviting startups to apply for its Public-Private Open Innovation Strategic Challenge Track, with the application window running from February 20 to March 19. The program is designed to pair startups with major corporations and public institutions that have identified specific problems they want outside innovators to solve.

The initiative arrives at a moment when open innovation is gaining serious traction worldwide. A survey of the top 100 innovation-driven companies globally found that 41% plan to grow their open innovation budgets in 2026 — a sharp rise from 25% the year before. Central to this trend is the “venture client” model, in which established organizations bring in startup technologies rather than building solutions in-house. Interest within Korea has surged as well: the number of corporations and institutions participating in the program climbed from 68 to 90 year-on-year, and the number of submitted challenge proposals jumped from 94 to 126.

After a demand assessment that kicked off in late December, 30 challenge projects have been selected from a broad roster of organizations, including Kakao Mobility, LIG Nex1, and Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-Water). MSS will choose around 30 startups to take on these challenges alongside the participating partners.

Each selected startup stands to receive up to approximately $96,800 (KRW 140 million) in project funding — about $13,800 (KRW 20 million) more than last year. On top of that, participants will get access to tailored consulting and specialist training to help them collaborate effectively. Corporate and institutional partners can sweeten the deal further by offering testing infrastructure, operational data, and access to their own technical staff to support proof-of-concept work and deployment. Startups that deliver strong results will also be able to apply for follow-on R&D and commercialization funding through related government programs. Applications are open through the K-Startup portal at www.k-startup.go.kr.

The Strategic Challenge Track is just one piece of a broader push. MSS has also selected 30 programs under its Private Selection and Recommendation Track, which recently welcomed Hyundai Motor Group‘s ZER01NE and Samsung Electronics‘ C-Lab Outside as new participants. Startups chosen through these corporate platforms may qualify for additional government backing upon recommendation.

Rounding out the effort, MSS is scaling up its Mutual Autonomous Matching Track, a more self-directed channel where companies and startups can find each other independently through the national open innovation platform at oimarket.kr. Corporate meetups are set to begin in February, with a formal application call to follow in March.

Taken together, the expanded program reflects MSS’s broader ambition: to make startup collaboration a standard part of how Korea’s major industries operate — and to ensure that promising technologies don’t stay on the shelf.