Winning Venture

Seedstars Seoul winner Krowdpop with SSW and Simon Lee.
Seedstars Seoul winner Krowdpop with SSW and Simon Lee.

 

Seedstars World (SSW) held its regional startup contest Seedstars Seoul at D.CAMP, a Seoul-based gathering space for venture companies made by members of the Korea Federation of Banks. Krowd Pop, a K-Pop concert service provider that uses crowdsourcing as its marketing tactic, won the first prize and will be invited to Geneva in February next year to compete with other regional winners. Innovative video advertisement service provider Easiaid received the second prize, and Chatting Cat took the third prize with its chatting application that provides language-conversion services.

Richard Choo, CEO of the winning Krowd Pop, said, “This was a great event, and it was a pleasure participating. We look forward to Geneva, as it will be the perfect platform to reach a European audience.”

SSW was founded by Alisee de Tonnac and Pierre-Alain Masson with the goal to encourage competition among venture companies, contributing to the growth of new companies. In 2013, it held its first competition in 20 cities, which was a great success, with the final winner being Korea-based Flitto. This year, it expanded to more than 30 countries. In the final global competition, all the regional winners get to compete for US$500,000 of equity investment to be funded to their companies.

Alisee de Tonnac, SSW CEO, stated, “Seedstars World will hold its worldwide competition every year, and we are expecting to grow exponentially to all the corners of the world and put all the fast growing startup scenes on the map. Indeed, our goal is to create a network for quality entrepreneurs around the world and help entrepreneurs, accelerators/incubators, co-working spaces, and investors to interact with one another.”

D.CAMP’s Jason Chang, also the manager of the Banks Foundation for Young Entrepreneurs and Seedstars Seoul partner, said, “Thanks to both Swiss Embassy and SSW to make this year’s Seoul competition at D.CAMP a one-of-a-kind experience for everyone. We wish the best of luck for Krowd Pop to replicate Flitto’s success in the final event in Geneva.”

Other partners included BeSUCCESS, with Nathan Milliard as one of the jurors. Seedstars Seoul, partly sponsored by the Swiss Embassy in Korea, was represented by Christian Elias Schneider, Head of the Science & Technology Office, also serving as a juror. D.CAMP’s Operations Manager Seokwon Yang and SSW’s Julien Berthomier rounded out the jury. Other sponsors include Freitag. and Business Korea as a media partner.

For its return to South Korea, SSW teamed up with Seedstars Asia partner Galixo, a boutique consultancy based in Singapore working with startups in developing their business strategy and entering new markets at a global level. CEO Raphael Dana stated, “Seedstars Seoul featured amazing startups solving local issues, but also some scalable models for global opportunities. Seedstarts World is clearly one of the most influential startup networks in the world for entrepreneurs with a big dream. We're proud partners, as we share the same values.”

The next stop of the tour is Seedstars Bangkok on the 8th of August. It then continues on to Ho Chi Minh, Manila, Jakarta, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Mexico City, Bogotá, Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Sao Paulo.

Copyright © BusinessKorea. Prohibited from unauthorized reproduction and redistribution