Shinhan Financial Group chairman Cho Yong-byoung (third from left in the front row) and CEOs of group affiliates pose for a photo shoot at the Consumer Protection and Customer-Centered Management Declaration Ceremony held at Shinhan Financial Group Headquarters on March 17. (Photo: Shinhan Financial Group)

Shinhan Financial Group held an agreement-signing ceremony for One Shinhan Connect New Technology Investment Association Fund No. 1 at Shinhan Bank Building in Seoul on March 30.

On hand were Jeong Woon-jin, president of Shinhan Capital, Lee Sung-yong, president of Shinhan DS and chief digital officers (CDOs) from group affiliates.

One Shinhan New Technology Investment Association Fund No. 1 is the first digital strategic investment (SI) fund to invest in promising venture companies, startups and future unicorn companies to strengthen the group's digital core capabilities. The fund is the first of its kind established by a Korean financial institution.

Major group affiliates such as Shinhan Bank, Shinhan Card, Shinhan Financial Investment and Shinhan Life Insurance participated as investors to create the 300-billion-won fund. Shinhan Capital will be tasked with managing the fund while serving as a control tower.

Through the management of the fund, Shinhan Financial Group will form a digital investment portfolio in a wide range to cover AI, blockchain, cloud and data (ABCD) technology, non-financial contents and platform among others by going beyond the financial industry and expand its investment area to invest not only in Korean companies but in foreign companies.

The fund will make large-scale investments to help venture and start-ups grow into unicorn companies by providing financial support. Its investment effects will be maximized through collaboration with affiliates of Shinhan Financial Group.

In addition, Shinhan Financial Group plans to yield tangible positive results by building a digital ecosystem called “Shinhan Digital Alliance” where promising and leading IT companies can enjoy win-win growth.

Through this, the financial group plans to establish strategic partnerships with partner companies to upgrade key platforms of its affiliates such as Shinhan SOL and Shinhan PayFAN, and to preempt a future customer base by utilizing platforms where the MZ generation is active such as the Metaverse and games.

“We made a digital strategic investment decision at the group level with our strong will to preemptively discover and foster future unicorn companies and build a digital ecosystem which goes beyond financial boundaries,” said Cho Yong-byoung, chairman of Shinhan Financial Group.

Shinhan Financial Group has selected “Digilog” as its digital transformation goal to enhance the value of customers, companies and employees through the acceleration of a virtuous digital-analog cycle and is going ahead with various digital projects.

In the meantime, Shinhan Financial Group announced on March 31 that it successfully carried out the accelerating program of “S² Bridge: Incheon” for the first group of startups.

S² Bridge: Incheon provides various programs to discover, support and invest in startups in the field of innovative technologies related to the fourth industry and bio-tech and healthcare. It even helps them go global.

Shinhan Financial Group selected 84 start-ups as the first group of S² Bridge: Incheon in November last year. It is conducting a startup incubation program with three tracks — incubation, acceleration and globalization.

Accelerating Track which came to an end on the day was designed to help promising startups with innovative technology attract investment, expand their business, commercialize their technology and expand markets. The program ran for a total of 16 companies for 16 weeks from the end of November 2020.

Moreover, Shinhan Financial Group succeeded in attracting a total of 16 billion won worth of investment to support startups by partnering with outside investors such as “S² Bridge: Incheon” Fund and venture capital, Korea Credit Guarantee Fund and the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency.

Through this, it plans to support the scale-up of startups with innovative technologies such as EVAR, a provider of electric vehicle charging solutions, Brain Gear, a wearable brain treatment system developer and Bio-Design Lab, a bio-pharmaceutical drug maker, all of which participated in the accelerating program.

On March 31, it also publicized startups and promoted investment in them through an online investor relation day with the announcement of the accelerating program effects, the introduction of participating companies, and an IR talk show.

“We will continue to support more startups to grow into unicorn companies through the group’s various startup incubation platforms including S² Bridge: Incheon,” a Shinhan Financial Group official said.