It Is Time to Build a First-Investor Prep Room for Local Tech Teams

More first-investor meetings are being created

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (중소벤처기업부), Korea’s ministry responsible for small businesses and startups, says it will hold more than 300 in-person investor pitch sessions by the end of 2026 for technology startups that have never received institutional investment. The plan involves 142 TIPS operators—private firms that discover and invest in startups, then recommend them for government support programmes.

The target of 300 is not a target for successful investments. After a startup submits a proposal, an operator reviews it and selects companies for an in-person pitch. Any investment still requires separate assessment and negotiation afterward.

As of October 1, more than 500 people had completed investment proposals, according to the ministry. It also plans to connect more than 200 people recommended through a separate startup-support programme with operators. Demand from people seeking a first investor is already visible in the hundreds.

The official application asks applicants to describe their business in no more than 500 Korean characters and submit between one and five PDF or presentation files. Each file must be no larger than 10 MB. During the second application period, one person can submit up to two proposals.

More opportunities do not remove regional differences. Of 134 TIPS operators counted by Korea’s National Assembly Budget Office from 2013 to 2023, 99 were in the Seoul metropolitan area and 35 were outside it. For founders outside the capital region, this means they need more than meeting opportunities: they need investors who understand their local industries and customers, plus a place to practise repeatedly without long-distance travel.

Follow a four-person technical team in Daejeon

Consider the leader of an early-stage, four-person company in Daejeon making industrial sensors. The team has research results and a prototype, but has never received institutional investment and is preparing for its first investor pitch.

Each time this person updates the pitch deck, they pull customer interview notes, test results, and projected revenue from separate documents. A support-programme application requires a long explanation of the technology. Investor materials require a shorter version of the same story. It is hard to immediately find the source behind each number.

Choosing an operator is also unclear. The team searches names and investment areas one by one, then records schedules, regions, and existing portfolio companies in another document. It ends up deciding where to use its two proposal opportunities largely by instinct.

Once a meeting is scheduled, the team gathers likely questions from nearby founders and practises. But after the pitch, the customer list, test materials, and next steps requested by investors are scattered across email and messaging apps. The team may not record which questions it failed to answer.

A local first-investor preparation service could bring this workflow together. When a team uploads its technical explanation, the service should do more than produce polished wording. It should first show the fields that need evidence: records that customers genuinely experience the problem, purchase intent, test results, and planned use of funds.

After entering information once, the team could reuse it in a 500-character introduction, key lines for a presentation, and an evidence bundle sent after a meeting. Each number could include its source file and verification date, so the original can be opened immediately when an investor asks.

Narrowing the scope to Daejeon and the Chungcheong region also makes the job smaller. The service would not need a nationwide investor directory. It could begin by organising pitch sessions in the region, operators that consider local companies, and common fields such as sensors, manufacturing, and research equipment.

Some work does not change. The team must establish whether customers will actually pay, explain weaknesses in its technology, and agree investment terms with investors. The service should not be an assessor that promises investment. It should be a prep room that makes missing evidence and next actions visible.

Elsewhere, the preparation process has become a service

In the United States, DocSend has become a monthly subscription service for sending investor materials through secure links and checking whether recipients opened documents and which pages they spent time viewing. Builders can review document-viewing activity and later use a storage space for materials used in contract review.

Dropbox acquired DocSend in 2021 for US$165 million, when DocSend had more than 17,000 customers. It shows that a narrow problem—sharing materials and handling follow-up—can become a paid service without directly introducing investors.

France’s public investment bank, Bpifrance, launched EuroQuity in 2008. Companies upload their company and investment plans, investors find companies to review, and the operating organisation provides pitch practice and one-to-one introductions. Startups use it free of charge, while public bodies and partner organisations support its operation.

At the end of 2024, Bpifrance said the EuroQuity network had reached about 23,000 companies and 3,000 investors. These are its own figures and do not guarantee results for individual companies. But they do show how a public connection service that began in one country can expand by combining preparation education with investor meetings.

Four things to build locally now

1. A Daejeon tech-startup evidence vault

• What it does: Stores customer interviews, test results, quotes, and evidence behind revenue projections, linked to sentences in investor materials.
• Who uses it: Three- to five-person teams in Daejeon building sensors or equipment from university or research-institute technology, with no previous institutional investment.
• Why now: As proposal opportunities increase, evidence that can be pulled out immediately when questions arise matters more than a short introduction alone.
• First screen: Shows the three pieces of evidence to complete this week and the dates of evidence already prepared.

2. A Chungcheong investor-meeting selection helper

• What it does: Organises each operator’s technology interests, event location, application deadline, and required materials in the same format, helping teams choose two places to submit proposals.
• Who uses it: Leaders of technology companies in Daejeon, Sejong, and South Chungcheong deciding where to apply when first-investment proposal opportunities are limited.
• Why now: Even as operators run more schedules, startups still need to compare options themselves to find a fit for their field.
• First screen: Shows approaching meetings, why each fits the team’s field, and missing materials before application.

3. A manufacturing-technology question practice room

• What it does: A founder explains for 10 minutes, while people with manufacturing purchasing experience or experienced founders ask questions about customers, testing, and pricing, then leave a record.
• Who uses it: Local equipment and component founders who can explain the technology but have not discussed revenue potential in front of purchasing managers.
• Why now: More pitch sessions do not create the repeated practice of receiving real questions and improving answers; each team still has to arrange that on its own.
• First screen: Places the next practice session, the three questions that most often caused difficulty, and materials that support the answers together.

4. A post-investor-meeting follow-up log

• What it does: Manages the people met, questions received, files promised, and next contact dates on one page.
• Who uses it: First-time fundraisers meeting several operators in a month and losing commitments between email and messaging apps.
• Why now: As meeting volume rises, responding quickly to requests after a meeting happens more often than delivering the first pitch.
• First screen: Shows the next action for each investor, ordered by the nearest deadline.

Make one call today

Ask one startup-incubation manager in Daejeon for a 20-minute call. Ask which materials five recently first-time institutional fundraising teams most often missed, and which tasks they failed to complete after meetings. If the same problem appears in at least three of the five teams, and the manager says they can show a test screen to two actual founders, a small local first-investor prep room is worth trying.

Why this matters where you are

Check whether first-time fundraisers in your market are also being offered more pitch opportunities while still preparing evidence, choosing the right meetings, and following up across scattered tools. The agencies, investor networks, and regional gaps will differ from Korea’s. You can begin with one local industry and one repeated preparation problem instead of building a broad investor marketplace.