ESG Korea, an ESG startup accelerator (AC), attended ‘Try Everything 2022’ which was held at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in Seoul from September 21st(Wed) to the 23rd(Fri).
On the 22nd, cases of collaboration, like the ones between POSCO-Petnow and Mercedes-Benz Korea-Langcode, as well as the case of open innovation from MOPIC, a 3D display manufacturer garnering interest from large corporations from Korean and overseas, were introduced.
POSCO is running ‘POSCO Idea Marketplace (POSCO IMP)’, the first startup discovery and fostering program that was launched by a large corporation back in 2011. POSCO IMP has invested 21.8 billion KRW in 134 startups, and 22.3 billion KRW in venture fund companies. They are also running other various investments like seed funds, growth funds, and overseas funds.
Hyunwoo Park, the deputy department head of Together with POSCO, and Junho Lim, the CEO of Petnow, which is growing through the POSCO IMP program, introduced support and other related programs at the event.
POSCO was the first large Korean corporation to run startup support programs, which began in 2009. They invested in and fostered companies even if the business items weren’t related to steel. Petnow is a leading example of such a case. Petnow is a company that was established in 2018 and provides a service that enables dogs or cats to have the pattern of the wrinkles on their nose to be registered like the fingerprints of humans for identification.
Deputy head Hyunwoo Park said that, “Under the basis of playing our role as corporate citizens in the last 2~3 years, we have been running our venture fostering business,” and went on to say, “We have even been investing in items that have nothing to do with steel. Petnow is one of those, and we rated them highly due to their excellent technical capabilities, which convinced us to select them and foster them.”
The so-called corporate citizens take on social roles and responsibilities, including coexistence and co-living. POSCO judged that corporate citizen activity was important starting in 2018 and has been consistently strengthening their venture fostering platform through the brand of ‘Challenge with POSCO’.
Petnow in received a lot of help from POSCO IMP when they were expanding into the US market in particular. When registering the identity of pet dogs or cats, the personal information of the pet owner must be entered and registered as well. In the case of the US, the policies regarding personal information are different in each state, and it is possibly to be swept up into issues of leaking personal information and get a class-action lawsuit.
CEO Junho Lim said that, “Regarding the issue of personal information, we have met over 10 times with US lawyers working for POSCO International, and they helped us understand the situation in each state beforehand,” and revealed that, “If we proceeded with each one individually, it would have incurred a massive cost. We were able to get the necessary information at the right time, which was incredibly helpful.”
Not only do they support POSTECH Holdings, an accelerator, and POSCO Technology Investment, an investment company, but startups by each company group as well.
Then there was an explanation of ‘Mercedes-Benz Korea’ and ‘Langcode’, which provides AI chatbot solutions.
STARTUP AUTOBAHN Korea applied the open innovation program established by the Mercedes-Benz Group AG in 2016 to Korea, making Korea the 7th in the world to adopt it in 2020. In Korea, Mercedes-Benz Korea hosted the program with major Korean and overseas corporations like SK Telecom and LG Electronics participating, which opened various opportunities for collaboration and investment attraction for startups.
Seungryong Lee, the manager of STARTUP AUTOBAHN Korea, relayed that, “STARTUP AUTOBAHN itself is a program that started in Europe in 2016, and is the biggest startup networking event and open innovation program,” and went on to say, “We currently have companies and institutions like the Seoul Startup Hub, the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development, SK Telecom, Hanhwa System, LG Electronics, and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, and we have discovered over 5,500 startups around the world.”
Langcode is a startup that opened its doors in 2020 with the mission of connecting AI with people. In addition to its collaboration with Benz Korea, they are also working with MBition, an affiliate of Group Software.
In accordance with the German ethos of prioritizing practicality, the company selects companies that are at the Series A level so that they are capable of working with large corporations. In the case of Langcode in particular, they have once again realized the importance of communication in English as they conducted related projects together and have invested much for the improvement of the level of English across the entire staff.
Seungryong Lee, the deputy head of Mercedes-Benz Korea, said that, “We advised many startups to keep knocking. They need to move actively to create cases of collaboration.”
Last up was Taehyung Kwon, the business manager of MOPIC. MOPIC is a startup that develops 3D light field display technology that allows 3D viewing without 3D glasses. They have numerous former Samsung Electronics employees and have 14 related technology patents.
Putting such technical capabilities up front, they are attracting joint businesses and investment with and from large corporations like KT, Hyundai Heavy Industries, LG Electronics, LG Display, Hanhwa Systems, Finland’s communications company, Elisa, and heavy industry company, Kalmar, as well as Spain’s Westfield Glories.
Meanwhile, the city of Seoul has been selected as a Global TOP 10 city to start a business. Various players of the startup ecosystem, such as global corporations, investment institutions, unicorn companies, and the media will attend to accelerate the invigoration of the Seoul startup ecosystem. Accordingly, over 40 programs, such as competitions, lectures, and seminars, will be held at Try Everything 2022, and various global institutions and Korean and foreign startup ecosystem experts, such as South Summit, Extreme Tech Challenge, Startup Genome, and the U.S. EMBASSY & CONSULATE, will be in attendance.
This year’s 2022 TRY EVERYTHING special articles were jointly planned and conducted by AVING NEWS and the Seoul Business Agency (sba), which contributes to the revitalization of the Seoul economy through comprehensive and systematic nurturing of medium and small-sized enterprises in Seoul.