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South Korean government is looking at India for growing its startup ecosystem. Indian startups will see increased interest from South Korean companies in terms of interest in investment as well as acquisitions, said Caleb Kyung Hwan Lee, executive director at the government's National IT Industry Promotion Agency. The country, which missed the India startup wave even as China and the US invested in India, is looking to increase its awareness and collaboration to increase its competitiveness, Lee said .

"The idea is to strengthen the partnership with India, which is now the world's second largest startup ecosystem. Indian startup ecosystem has seen explosive growth over the last three years. India is home to 45% of world's R & D centres outside of the US and has been open to globalisation," Lee said. He added that the strengths of Korea's in hardware will complement India's strength in software. He said that Indian companies can treat South Korea as a test bed for launching their products before expanding to China and Japan.

The Korean government has announced its K - Startup global challenge. This will see the winners get investments from the Korean government, along with accelerator support and contracts with Korean companies. Last year the challenge saw 10% of the applicants coming from India, which Lee expects to go up to 15% this year. The government supported 20 startups from across the globe.

The Bengaluru-based augmented reality firm Preksh and Mumbai-based sound technology company Soundrex were the two Indian companies that won the last year event. South Korea has the world's fastest internet connectivity and has more than 500 startups. "The government is planning to invest in startups to create a next generation ecosystem. We also have a helpdesk to deal with language and cultural challenges for startups from other countries," said Lee adding that the government is working towards increasing awareness about the country's ecosystem.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/companies/14-tech-startups-graduate-from-microsoft-accelerator/articleshow/59046791.cms