BUSAN — The Korean Register (KR) and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) will help deep-tech startups in the shipbuilding and offshore sector commercialize their technologies. The move aims to address a bottleneck that leaves companies unable to enter actual ships and shipyards, the final gateway to commercialization, even after they have developed a technology.
KR said on the 30th that it had selected six companies — Teamgrit, Geosona, HOP, FRT Robotics, SLM and Shecco — for a program to support the commercialization of deep-tech startup technologies in the shipbuilding and offshore sector, run jointly with KAIST's Global Commercialization Center (GCC).
The program is part of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups' 2026 Leap-Ahead Startup Project. KAIST serves as the lead organization, supporting commercialization in robotics and advanced manufacturing, while KR handles technical reviews and field verification aligned with the demands and rules of the shipbuilding and offshore industry.
One of the biggest barriers deep-tech startups face comes after the technology itself is developed. Even when performance has been proven in a laboratory or a test bed, ships and shipyards set high requirements for safety and reliability, making it difficult to secure opportunities to test a technology at an actual industrial site. Technologies tied to vessel operations or shipbuilding work are especially sensitive, because even a small error can translate into safety or navigation risk, leaving potential buyers cautious about adopting early-stage technology.
The program focuses on narrowing that verification gap. KR will review whether the selected companies' technologies can be applied, based on classification rules and the requirements of the shipbuilding and offshore industry, and will provide technical advice. It will also create pathways for the technologies to reach industrial sites by connecting the companies with actual buyers such as shipyards and shipping lines.
Two of the six companies will carry out proof-of-concept (PoC) tests to validate their technology concepts at shipbuilding and offshore sites. The approach is to first confirm the stability of the technology and its safety conditions through simulation, then move into limited field verification. Operational data gathered during the verification process will later be analyzed to assess the feasibility of field application and follow-up commercialization plans.
The collaboration is a follow-up to a memorandum of understanding that KR and KAIST GCC signed in April this year. The two institutions agreed at the time to cooperate on the commercialization of deep-tech startup technologies as well as on technology demonstration and verification in the shipbuilding and offshore sector and on connecting companies with buyers and test beds.
"In the shipbuilding and offshore sector, verification in actual operating and working environments is very important in securing the reliability of a technology," KR Vice President Kim Dae-heon said. "We will provide support so that promising deep-tech technologies can be verified in the field and lead to commercialization."
