Korea-Japan Venture Startup Investment Summit 2024
The Korea-Japan Venture/Startup Investment Summit 2024 was held on Friday, May 10, 2024, at the Toranomon Hills Mori Tower, sponsored by the Korean Ministry of SMEs & Startups and the Korea Venture Investment Corporation.
The event consisted of three parts:
- Part 1 — Korea-Japan Investment Cooperation Event
- Part 2 — Startup IR
- Part 3 — CVC (Corporate Venture Capital) Summit.
Over 150 people attended, including Minister Young-ju Oh of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Director-General Shimpei Ago of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and representatives from venture capital firms and startups from both countries.
In her opening remarks, Minister Oh said, “Today’s event is significant in that it marks the launch of the first joint venture fund involving the two governments, and promises exchanges and cooperation between private CVC associations/organizations. This signifies the start of a new era of cooperation in the startup ecosystems of Korea and Japan. If we cooperate based on trust and leverage each other’s strengths and complement each other, I believe we can create a cooperative ecosystem where global unicorn companies can be born. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will also provide strong support so that Korean startups can achieve even greater success in the global market after succeeding in Japan, by closely communicating with the industry to find solutions to difficulties faced by Korean startups entering the Japanese market.”
Part 1, the Korea-Japan Investment Cooperation Event, included the launch ceremony for the Korea-Japan joint fund and an MOU signing ceremony between CVC associations/organizations of the two countries. The Korea-Japan joint fund aims to raise a total of $100 million, with Korea’s mother fund contributing $5 million and Japan’s government investment agency, the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), and private investors also contributing.
The Korea-Japan joint fund plans to invest at least $5 million in Korean companies, making it the first venture fund jointly established by the governments of the two countries, which is highly significant. In addition to focusing investments on startups in Korea and Japan, this fund will serve as a bridge for venture investment policy cooperation between the two governments and provide a local investor network for Korean startups entering Japan, greatly supporting K-startups’ entry into the Japanese market.
Part 1 also marked the first public unveiling of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups’ integrated investment attraction program for startups, ‘K Global Star.’ This program provides systematic support at each stage of investment attraction for startups seeking to enter overseas markets, such as pre-preparation, local IR events, legal advice, etc. Startups that successfully attract investment will receive a policy support package including Global Tips, technology guarantees, and matching investments from the mother fund.
The ‘K Global Star’ program held its first event in Japan and plans to hold subsequent events in the United States, Asia, Europe, and other global locations this year. Starting in the second half of this year, the program will also be held in non-capital regions of Korea where investment opportunities are lacking.
Major domestic and international venture capital firms will participate as ‘K Global Star Supporters,’ with domestic firms such as SBVA, IMM Investment, Shinhan Venture Investment, SV Investment, and KB Investment participating in this event, along with five Japanese venture capital firms.
Additionally, an MOU signing ceremony was held between the representative CVC associations/organizations of the two countries, the ‘Korea CVC Council’ and ‘Japan FIRST CVC.’ Through this MOU, the two organizations plan to engage in various activities such as inter-association exchanges, co-hosting IR events, and supporting startups seeking to enter each other’s markets.
Part 2, the Startup IR event, featured 13 startups (six from Korea and seven from Japan) selected by venture capital firms from both countries, who gave investment pitches in front of investors from both nations.
In particular, the six participating Korean startups were the first to join the ‘K Global Star’ program and included deep-tech startups in fields such as AI. The ‘K Global Star’ program plans to select around 30 companies this year, which will receive various investment opportunities targeting investors worldwide, as well as generous follow-up support such as Global Tips.
Korea Startups:
- MVL: MVL is a pioneering Web3 mobility project based on TADA, a ride-hailing service in Southeast Asia, and ONION Mobility, e-vehicles production and infrastructure; MVL aims to integrate traditional mobility businesses onto the blockchain, revolutionizing data utilization and ensuring fair rewards for contributions
- Dabeeo: Dabeeo is an AI technology company specializing in geospatial data, delivering extensive geo-intelligence through their five cutting edge technologies: (I) super resolution, (II) instance segmentation, (III) object detection, (IV) 3D reconstruction, and (V) change detection; with their AI-based digital transformation technology, Dabeeo looks to increase their customers’ productivity and convenience
- Rebellions: Rebellions is a Korean AI chip startup specializing in AI inference tasks, having introduced two chips within two years since its launch, with the third one planned for rollout; Rebellions AI chips target Generative AI service models such as LLMs and various other latency-critical use cases
- Elice: Elice develops an all-in-one Learning Experience Platform to provide interactive digital learning for students, corporates, and governments by re-skilling and up-skilling digital and AI capabilities for all industries
- RECO: RECO is leading the digitalization and platform transformation of the waste management industry to enable total waste resource management for industry players including waste generators, haulers, and processors; RECO’s waste management SaaS “UpBox” provides transparent access to data, increasing the traceability of the waste disposal process, and allowing players to make data-based decisions
- RayMed: RayMed is an innovative precision dosimetry solution for radio-pharmaceutical treatment, able to calculate individual doses of radiation for specific patients, thus improving patient survival
Japan Startups:
- Forest: Forest is the leading aggregator & accelerator for D2C e-commerce brands in Japan; Forest provides founders of emerging consumer brands with liquidity and a success plan to help accelerate brands from 1 to 10; the company now owns 10+ brands and is investing in bringing local Japan brands to overseas markets
- Braid: Braid is building an AI platform to create and run simulations for engineers working on project areas like automotive, aerospace and materials science manufacturing — industries where there are regularly bottlenecks in development due to how models are tested before production
- Zaiko: Zaiko is a leading Event-as-a-Service platform, an all-in-one tool that empowers the artists & creators; Zaiko allows artists & creators to go direct-to-fan, empowering them to make a better living by providing multiple services that could replace the intermediaries
- TGAL: TGAL is the largest ghost kitchen operator and the №1 distributor of pre-prepped ingredients for restaurants in Japan
- 17LIVE: 17LIVE is currently the largest live-streaming content platform in developed Asia, with №1 market share in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong that enables creators to live stream, share photos, upload videos, and interact with fans
- LAPRAS: LAPRAS helps companies hire talented software engineers; LAPRAS collects candidate information from open resources such as repository hosting services, technical information sharing services, business SNSs, Q&A forums, and candidates’ blogs
- SyntheticGestalt: SyntheticGestalt is developing machine learning models for drug discovery and software for facilitating and automating research in the life-sciences industry
Before the IR program, two investment cases involving startups from both countries were also announced. The Japanese venture capital firm ‘COLOPL NEXT’ decided to invest 1 billion won in the Korean startup ‘Raymed,’ while the Korean CVC ‘GS Ventures’ decided to invest 80 million yen in the Japanese startup ‘Koikedenchi Battery.’ Raymed, which secured investment from a Japanese venture capital firm, is a company established in 2020 that develops AI-based cancer treatment systems. With this investment, they plan to accelerate their global expansion, including in Japan.
The IR program lasted about two hours, with around 150 investment professionals in attendance. The 12 startups gave presentations to attract investment, followed by individual investment consultations between the startups and venture capital firms at separate consultation booths.
In Part 3, the ‘Korea-Japan CVC Summit,’ about 80 participants from Korean and Japanese CVC organizations and venture capital firms shared investment cooperation cases between the two countries and held expert consultations to discuss mutual cooperation. The Korean panelists included Joon-yeong Heo, CEO of GS Ventures, and Jun-sik Kim, Managing Director of CJ Investment, while the Japanese side had two panelists, including Kazuyoshi Yamada, CEO of FIRST CVC, who discussed cooperation between CVCs of the two countries.
Minister Oh stated, “The first Korea-Japan venture/startup cooperation event saw more than 150 participants, confirming the high level of interest in investment cooperation between startups and venture capital firms of the two countries. In particular, Japanese investors showed great interest in the outstanding technological capabilities of Korean startups.” She added, “The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will strive to fully support the realization of ‘Startup Korea’ by raising over 1 trillion won in global funds annually and actively supporting startups’ global investment attraction through the ‘K Global Star’ program, so that K-startups can grow into leading players in the global market.”
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