Daegu City and Daegu Technopark (Daegu TP) selected 8 local SMEs with growth potential as new star companies of the '100 Star Company Fostering Project', which aims to foster promising medium-sized enterprises into medium-sized enterprises with gradual support.

Eight companies selected as Daegu Star Enterprises in 2021 have KRW 15.9 billion as of 2020 and 59 employees on average. They also have an average compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% for the past three years.

Among the selected companies, 3 are in the field of core industries and the rest of eight are in the field of future industries.

Wookyoung Information Technology (WKIT), one of ASPA members, is an information security company specializing in image export and encryption of CCTV using deep learning-based object detection technology.

WKIT, once selected as a pre-star company, now has been grown from a small-sized company to a medium-sized company this year and jumped up from a pre-star company to a star company at the same time. Also, they are widely recognized reaching the average annual sales growth of 32.6% for the past three years.

Daegu Mayor Kwon Young-jin said, "As leaders who will lead the post-corona era, we will spare no effort in supporting the eight new star companies so that they can grow into global companies beyond the region and lead the future economy of Daegu city.“

For systematic growth, companies selected as star companies will be provided with the support which accompanies an industry-university-linked cooperation, such as growth strategy consulting, quick support tailored to commercialization needs, discovery and planning of R&D tasks, and technical doctor support to solve difficult technologies.