Chairman Lee Dong-geol of Korea Development Bank(KDB) (Photo: KDB)

Chairman Lee Dong-geol of Korea Development Bank(KDB) in his New Year’s address said that the bank will take care of those areas that need urgent changes one-by-one, saying that the areas that need changes include personnel, organization and systems and changes cannot be made all at once.

He said its about time to make reform for survival as the organization that cannot change cannot survive and he will lead the bank to make changes steadily but surely.

The chairman said the bank has to find reform business firms as the economy needs the new growth engines for its resurgence and KDB is ready to lead the reformed growth of the nation by quoting a verb that says those who move preemptively can succeed.

Korea Development Bank(KDB) and the National Research Council for Science Technology joined together to make 90 billion won investments as the seed money for the businesses to develop such worthy technologies as drone, anti-cancer, and hydrogen battery, among others.

KDB alone said on Nov. 20 its investments in businesses focused on the development of those technologies including Comemtech for hydrogen battery, This is Engineering for drone, and GI Innovation for drug for protein , altogether 13 firms.

If the investments made by policy-financing organizations were added to those made by KDB, they could easily top 90 billion won. KDB signed agreements with 25 policy-financing organizations before investing in those firms lest that those new technologies developed by research institutions and at universities going to rust.

KDB officials said the investors rarely come forward to make investments in those companies set up to build businesses around those new technologies as they are too risky in the early stages.

The policy-financing institutions made investments in those firms to get rid of the “death zone” for the businesses just launched.

KDB gets the list of firms recommended by the research institutions put them on its KDB Next Round” List before recommending them to the investors and for its own investments.

The state-run bank has been running the list for the past three years for the growth of venture capitals and spur the startups. The list recommended 53 firms this year so far and 13 of them got the investments, which are being used to hire new employees and install the production facilities.

Comemtech has been putting the 2 billion won in investments they got into the hydrogen battery production after successfully producing them domestically and prepares to supply them to global automakers to compete with Gore the only hydrogen battery maker so far, monopolizing the business.

The company is about to cut the price of the battery to around half of what Gore charges to secure s market share in the early stages of its operation. The company has been producing high molecule membranes and supplying the industrial air filters to Korea Electric Power Co. and POSCO, among others.

Other companies that got the investments include Thisis Engineering which is to use the 7 billion won fund to further develop the done piloted with one hand; Wellmiko Bio is to put the 25 billion won investment to its research on anti-caner drugs, and Shindeka Bio got 12 billion won in investments to use the fund to further develop the platform for dielectric map growth. GI Innovation got 17 billion won in investments.

KDB officials said the total investments to turn technologies into businesses would be boosted to around 100 billion from 23 billion which have been invested so far by 2022. South Korea’s state-owned Korea Development Bank (KDB) is creating a 50 billion won ($45.2 million) fund with other state-invested organizations to help local startups and small- and mid-sized enterprises (SME) attract foreign investment and go global.

Korea Development Bank said on Aug. 30 it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT), Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) and Hanwha Investment & Securities to launch a fund worth 50 billion won designed to invest in promising startups and SMEs.

KDB and KIAT will each invest 10 billion won in the fund, while Hanwha Group affiliates including the brokerage will finance the remaining 30 billion won.

The new fund will invest in startups and SMEs with innovative and emerging technologies including those joining KDB’s startup incubation program Next Round.