Korean Accelerator Future Play has signed an MOU with the Seoul Industry Promotion Agency (SBA), a support organization for promising startups in Seoul, to discover and nurture promising startups. It would jointly hold the ‘Future Guild’ program to support innovative technology startups’ discovery, investment, and growth. Future Guild’ is a venue for collaboration between large corporations and startups jointly hosted by Seoul Startup Hub, Future Play, and Seoul Industry Promotion Agency.
‘Future Guild’ to promote ‘Metaverse’ technology startups
Future Play and Seoul Industry Promotion Agency have set the theme for the first season of this Future Guild as ‘Metaverse.’ This program is scheduled to run for seven months and select startups with technologies that fit the presented topic. It will match three startups with corporate partners to strengthen existing businesses or discover and verify new business models. The ‘Future Guild’ will feature representative corporate partners in five industrial areas: media & content, advertising agency, construction and manufacturing, shopping and logistics, and finance / real estate.
Through the ‘Future Guild,’ large corporations can discover and verify new businesses through collaboration with startups, explore new technologies and perform performance verification (PoC), and secure investment opportunities in early-stage companies. The startups can participate in accelerating programs, attract investment opportunities, cooperate with large business partners and have positive encounters with strategic investors (SI).
“Starting with this, we plan to conduct each season by selecting various topics relevant for future industries with great growth potential for, e.g., the ESG ( environmental, social and governance ) field,” Future Play CEO Ryu Joong-hee said, “We are looking forward to the synergy they will create by discovering startups with business ideas and collaborating with large companies.” Seong Dong-ho, head of the startup division at the Seoul Industry Promotion Agency, said, “One of the main goals of the Seoul Startup Hub is to promote open innovation with large companies, and we plan to expand this intensively this year.”
Future Play is a startup accelerator launched in 2013 and has invested in about 180 companies. It continues to operate the ‘Techup Plus’ program, a collaboration model between startups and large companies in each industry, such as Mando and Amorepacific, and conducts ‘Future Inside, ‘an in-house venture program with large corporations such as LG Electronics and Daewoo E&C. In addition, recently, it launched the ‘Human Acceleration Group, a new organization to pioneer and lead the ‘Human Acceleration’ area for individual competency enhancement and growth as well as startups.
The Seoul Industry Promotion Agency promotes the city’s industry and promotes SMEs comprehensively and systematically, contributing to improving the business conditions of SMEs and strengthening their competitiveness. Future Play and the Seoul Industry Promotion Agency held a business agreement ceremony on April 13 to promote a joint project at the ‘Seoul Startup Hub Gongdeok’ located in Gongdeok-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul.
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