Korean Start-Up Benchmarking
Gerard Hoffmann, CEO of Poximus Luxembourg, visited GCCEI and Pangyo Techno Valley on 22 May, 2017, leading 32 economic delegates of Luxembourg,. The delegation is composed of key government and private sectors including Cisco Systems, Hitec, EXXUS, Deloitte Audit, University of Luxembourg, etc.
The delegation was deeply interested in Korean fintech startups. The delegation asked GCCEI to introduce one of them and Paycock, one of the fintech startups accelerated by GCCEI, presented their product to the delegation. Paycock Solution is a mobile easy payment platform supporting credit card payment and barcode payment and substituting any type of card reader machine or equipment by using smartphone application software. Through the app, Paycock Solution processes payments, such as credit card transaction approval and claim, by transmitting to credit card companies the encrypted text of a consumer’s banking information including the card number and card expiration date created by scanning the actual credit card without leaving the image data inside smart devices. Paycock was already invited by Startup Farm, one of the top accelerators in Brazil.
The delegation was also impressed by the smart umbrella developer Opus One. The statup was founded by one of the former best engineers from Samsung Electronics, Joseph Kiyoung Kim. If you just shake the shaft of an umbrella after you connect your smart phone to the umbrella via Bluetooth, LED lamp on the top turns green, meaning it’s not going to rain, and turns red, meaning it’s going to rain. If you forget the smart umbrella left somewhere, it’ll send you a message via the app Jonas, saying “you forgot me” with the exact location where you left it. The shaft vibrates when you have incoming phone calls or messages. You can also locate your smart phone as well when you forgot where you left your phone by shaking the smart umbrella. Since it rains a lot in Luxembourg, the delegation believed that Opus One might have a good sales chance in Luxembourg.
On the 5th floor in the GCCEI building, where the co-working space is located, they also met with Amadas, another Korean startup, which makes a smart digital door lock. Amadas has attracted many attentions due to its sophisticated design and great functions such as opening and locking the door via smart phone regardless of wherever you are. They discussed how Amadas can enter the European market.
The delegation was keenly intrigued by high tech startups. David Sehyeon Baek, Director of Global Cooperation & Marketing at GCCEI, introduced how to accelerate the high tech startups especially focused on IoT, fintech, and mobile games. He also presented UlalaLab, an affordable smart factory platform developer, and Ripplebuds, an earset with a microphone built-in. In addition, he explained about the importance of using all these technologies to enhance the productivity and at the same time the importance of how to reconcile human wellbeing and happiness with technological efficiency.
David led the group out to Pangyo Techno Valley, one of the most successful IT Cluster in Korea. Although it is not an organic one, it is becoming a Korean Silicon Valley, with many startups coming and working in the cluster. The annual revenue amounts to US$60 billion and 76% of the workers are mostly in their 20s and 30s.
The study delegation ended their visit hearing the importance of such as collaboration between the public and private sectors, the location of the accelerators and consistency of innovation policy not to be affected by politics.
Gerard Hoffmann said, “Korea is well known for its high tech industry to Luxembourg, so we didn’t hesitate to come visit Korea when we designed the study trip. Especially faced with the advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution, we wanted to know how to tap into all those technologies to boost the economy and welfare of the people, not to mention how to accelerate and support the disruptive innovators in this big picture. GCCEI shared their trials and errors very honestly, and so this trip helped a lot. The collaboration between the public private sectors cannot be overemphasized, since it is extremely vital. If possible, we would like to help the Korean startups enter the European market via Luxembourg, too.”
Kyeong-Joon Lee, CEO of GCCEI stated that GCCEI would continue to work with foreign partners to help foreign and Korean startups to enter the markets home and abroad.