Kibo visits AI ad firm Rocket Salad, offers up to W10b in guarantee support

Korea Technology Finance Corporation said Monday it visited Rocket Salad, a Seoul-based company selected for its Kibo-Star Valley program, to assess the firm's growth and discuss ways to support innovative companies.

Founded in 2023, Rocket Salad specializes in advertising content production, using AI and big data analytics to create personalized ad content. The company has been expanding into digital advertising and marketing, sustaining steady sales growth.

Kibo's Kibo-Star Valley program identifies innovative companies with strong technology and growth potential and provides financial support tailored to each stage of development. Selected companies receive a pre-approved guarantee limit ranging from 3 billion won ($2.23 million) to a maximum of 10 billion won, depending on the company's age and growth stage.

The program also offers a preferential guarantee ratio of 95 percent for three years and reduces guarantee fees by 0.5 percentage points over the same period. It is designed to ease the financing burden on innovative companies that have strong technology but lack collateral, and to support their business expansion.

During the visit, Jung Dae-young, head of Kibo's Seoul East Regional Headquarters, and Kim Min-sik, CEO of Rocket Salad, toured the company's in-house research center and business premises. They then reviewed Rocket Salad's AI-based ad content production technology and current operations, and discussed challenges the company faces and ways to support its growth.

"Kibo-Star Valley has been a great help as we develop our technology and expand our business in the fast-changing digital advertising market," Kim said. "We will continue to strengthen our market competitiveness with differentiated advertising content powered by AI and big data."

Jung said the visit gave him a firsthand look at the growth potential of an innovative company broadening its business on the strength of its technology. "We will actively seek out more Kibo-Star Valley companies with strong technology and growth potential, and support them in developing into globally competitive enterprises," he said.