“The scale of funding related to startups in 2021 reached $6.4 trillion dollars, which is higher than the GDP of G7 countries. Simply looking at the number can show you that the startup ecosystem is one of the pillars of the global economy!”
These were the words said by Stephen Kuester, the head of ecosystem consulting at Startup Genome, at ‘Try Everything 2022’, which is a global startup festival that was held from September 21st(Wed) to the 23rd (Fri) at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP). He also presented about how big the economic scale of the startup ecosystem was, and of the standing and role of Seoul in the global startup ecosystem.
The city of Seoul held ‘Try Everything 2022’, a global startup festival, starting from this past September 21st(Wed) to the 23rd(Fri) at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP).The event was a festival where members of the startup ecosystem were gathered, having120 investors, including 20 companies from overseas, and over 1,300 startups, including 30 from overseas, and was the biggest one yet.
The city of Seoul was selected by Startup Genome to be a global ‘top10’ city for startups on their global startup ecosystem report in 2022. At this year’s event, you were able to hear about the standing of Seoul and the necessary conditions for it top enter TOP5 in the future from Stephen Kuester, the head of ecosystem consulting at Startup Genome.
According to the evaluation of the pros and cons of Seoul’s startup ecosystem, Stephen Kuester said that there was a higher proportion in the domestic market, and that the expandability of its market reach was lacking compared to that of startups overseas like in the US.
He advised that, “With the domestic market being small, Korean startups need to turn their attention to overseas markets, but they remain in Korea. Seoul has quickly risen to be a global top 10 city, but as the ratio of domestic VCs, the main entity of startups, exceed 70%, it is necessary to increase the ratio of investment in global VCs.” He emphasized that this needed to be remedied through global expansion and active networking with global VCs overseas.
In the Q&A session that followed, he brought up the case of Canada in the past and said that they needed to not only meet Korean investors, but foreign investors as well, and have an active stance for networking.
Stephen Kuester said that, “Canadian startups mostly had domestic VC investments, but began to change as many startups expanded their networking to Silicon Valley.” We chose global mentorship and scaling skill, global partnerships with other startup ecosystems overseas, and continuous connection with venture capital groups, as the 3 main keywords of the requirements for overseas expansion.
Finally, he once again emphasized that, “Ultimately, going beyond the domestic market and actively knocking on the door of the global market is the most basic but most important key for Seoul’s startup ecosystem to grow to reach TOP5.”
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.