The second edition of “TIPSX beSUCCESS Korean Startup Showcase @Silicon Valley” was a grand success. The startup showcase event was held on February 4th and 5th in San Francisco and Palo Alto, USA. Korean Media company focussing on startups, beSUCCESS, and TIPS (Tech Incubator Program for Startup), the leading Startup Supporting Program in Korea had hosted the event for the benefit of the upcoming Korean startups.
The conference brought together nine promising startups who got an opportunity to interact with investors, venture capitalists, and mentors. The startups were able to showcase their products and services and get useful feedback regarding their target market.
On February 3rd, 2020, the startups had got the time to do pitch rehearsals and have mentoring sessions before the main event. The program’s nine startups visited HAX, the venture capital firm in San Francisco, and interacted with HAX’s Investment Analyst, Grant Ge, and Program Manager Ethan Haigh.
On February 4th, the mentoring session on the day was held at AngelList by Eric Woo, the Head of Institutional Capital/CFA. AngelList is the company that helps empowering the next generation of angel investors and emerging VC fund managers through various programs.
Later in the day, prominent persons and investors from Forum Ventures, Scrum Ventures, TechCrunch, Strong Ventures, Orrick, IMPACTA, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, Ghosh.com, Global Brain, Alchemist Accelerator and Bene Studio attended the private showcase at Orrick in San Francisco. Orrick SF is a global law firm headquartered in San Francisco. Harold Yu, partner in Orrick’s Technology Companies Group hosted the session.
On February 5th, the mentoring session was conducted by Sue Xu, General Partner at Amino Capital. Since 2012, she has involved with more than 150 investments. Amino Capital is venture firm based in Palo Alto, focusing on seed to growth stage investments in big data and data driven technologies.
The showcase event took place at Goodwin Procter LLP hosted by Kevin V.Lam, partner at Goodwin’s Strategic Technology Transactions and Licensing practice and a member of the firm’s Technology Companies and Life Sciences group. Goodwin Procter LLP is a Global 50 law firm with more than 1,200 lawyers and offices across various cities in the USA.
The session was attended by representatives from companies like IMO Ventures, Primer Sazze Partners, Strong Ventures, Plug and Play Tech Center, Goodwin Procter LLP, Play Labs, Savitude, Inc, Asymmetry Ventures, Big Basin Capital and Fundpire.
The participating startup founders were given time to represent their service and product and then asked many challenging questions regarding the market, consumption, revenue generation, regulation issues, etc.
On February 6th, a visit to WeWork workspace of Korean startup BeeCanvas and interaction with the startup representatives was held. The participating startups also had opportunity to network with the VCs and investors on individual basis.
The nine startups that attended the event were:
1) OMNIOUS TAGGER – This is a cloud-based service that offers AI-powered auto-tagging solutions by applying deep learning in fashion.
2) MediWhale – The company’s Artificial Intelligence software Dr Noon can diagnose fundus disease and cardiovascular disease with only fundus photos with an accuracy rate of up to 95%.
3) Lartbio – The startup uses genome engineered technology to produce designed cells or embryos for next-generation animal reproduction, especially the bovine.
4) Qstag- It is developing a self-health monitoring platform using smart POCT based on immunology electrochemical biosensor.
5) Mobiltech – The startup has developed a data management solution for smart cities with Replica City that includes digital twins, HD maps, and utility data.
6) Inhandplus – It has developed a small-sized camera module that can be embedded in a smartwatch to monitor the medication intake.
7) Sleek – The company aims to build a social fitness platform, currently operates on- and offline group exercise service ‘Sleek Project’ and healthy food curation service ‘Sleek Market.’
8) K-Nets – This company offers a 3D total solution that supports differentiated engineering technology. It provides 3D scanning, 3D design and reverse engineering, and 3D quality inspection.
9) Danbi – This is a smart shop management solution where an order & pay service on mobile uses WiFi and doesn’t need downloading of an app. The service also analyzes visitor data and does marketing for offline shop owner automatically.
ABOUT TIPS
TIPS is a Korean government initiative to support startup ecosystem in the country. It is basically an Accelerator Investment-Driven Tech Incubator Program for Startups. It is designed to identify and nurture the most promising startups with innovative ideas and groundbreaking technologies. To support them when entering the global marketplace, it appoints and designates successful venture founders – who are now angel investors and leaders of technological enterprises – as their incubators/accelerators.
ABOUT beSUCCESS
beSUCCESS is Korea’s leading tech start-up media launched in 2011. To support Korean companies’ global advancement, beSUCCESS operates national and English media, and holds beLAUNCH and beGLOBAL, the leading start-up conference.
beSUCCESS media not only provides direct and indirect information needed to expand the insights of domestic startups such as tech trends, startup news, and entrepreneurship around the world including Silicon Valley, but also introduces Korea’s start-up ecosystem and news in English to the rest of the world to support the global success of Korean start-ups. It also runs English news sites on technology – koreatechtoday.com and startup news sites – koreatechdesk.com.
