[비욘드포스트 김민혁 기자] The '2021 K-Startup Grand Challenge' business demonstration (Demo Day) hosted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Information and Communication Industry Promotion Agency was held from November 16th (Tue) to 18th (Thu) at Novotel Ambassador Hotel Dongdaemun.

The ‘K-Startup Grand Challenge’ is a program that discovers excellent foreign technology entrepreneurs and supports them to start a business and settle in Korea. It has been promoted since 2016 in order to enhance Korean startups and ventures’ competitiveness in the global market by expanding the openness of the Korean startup ecosystem and improving innovation through exchange and competition between domestic and foreign startups.

According to 'Start-up Genome', a world-class startup ecosystem evaluation agency, the startup ecosystem of Korea (Seoul) is first ranked 20th of the world last year and ranked 16th this year.

Furthermore, the 'K-Startup Grand Challenge' has also become a true global startup program with a total of 2,568 teams applying from 129 countries, the largest number of participants ever.

Looking at the progress, after receiving online applications from April 15th to June 15th, the first document review and the second overseas audition were conducted from June to July, and 54 teams were finally selected in August.

The 54 selected teams entered Korea and prepared for the business demonstration (Demo Day) at the Pangyo Startup Campus under systematic guidance from a startup planner (accelerator) from the end of August to the present.

At the business demonstration (Demo Day) held from November 16 to 18, 54 teams presented their start-up items and business plans in Korea that they had prepared so far, and were evaluated by domestic and foreign start-up experts and investors. At the business demonstration, 30 excellent teams including top 10 winning teams were selected and announced.

In particular, this year, the size of the winning teams was greatly expanded from 5 teams last year to 10 teams, encouraging the wil to challenge of participating teams with strong will to settle and start a business in Korea.

At the awards ceremony, 4 of the 11 teams who have been taken care by TNE Partners accomplished to be in the 'Top 10'.

Top 2 is XQUANT from Hong Kong, and received a prize of $70,000 for commercialization. Team representative Chea Srun introduced “a program that analyzes and refines financial data with artificial intelligence” using his experience of working as an executive at Macquarie Bank and Woori Bank for the past 16 years.

The CEO of the XQUANT team said, “I was not confident when I first started, but the mentoring, networking, and investment promotion coaching through the Grand Challenge program helped me a lot.”

The Top 5 is Fastpong from Iran, and received $15,000 in prize money for commercialization. Fastpong developed a table tennis training machine using artificial intelligence technology, and its team leader, Amir Kamandi, was on the Iranian national table tennis team and graduated from the Seoul National University Graduate School of Engineering. By applying his experience to the business, he is actively expanding his business with Samsung Life Insurance, national player Se-hyuk Joo, and the Korean Horse Association table tennis team. In addition, Fastpong is planning to enter the global market with the support of the Korea Startup Promotion Agency at '2022 CES' to be held in Las Vegas in January 2022.

The Top 6 is Glowsome Beauty from Colombia, and received a $10,000 prize for commercialization. Glowsome Beauty is a K-beauty product promotion and brokerage mobile application platform that Shirley Vega is highly interested in Korean beauty, living in Korea for 13 years and envisioning her business model while applying for permanent residency. In particular, she is preparing for the launch of a new business “Live Commerce Platform” in 2022 by leveraging her strength of securing a network of influencers from South America (Colombia, Mexico, Chile, etc.) and a fast logistics distribution line.

Rachel Sung Hwa Yoo, the CEO of TNE Partners, highly appreciated Shirley Vega's will to settle in Korea and will to connect the South American and the Korean market. “I am sure that Korean startups and small and medium-sized enterprises will enter the South American market through the Glowsome Beauty live commerce platform,” Rachel Sung Hwa Yoo said.

Top 9 is Altum.Inc from the United States, and received a prize of $10,000 for commercialization. It is a startup that provides an AI-based writing support program with 'jenni.ai'. It provides various types of writings including essays, thesis, research reports, and etc. It has a subscription-based business model. In particular, it is a promising start-up that is growing aggressively after receiving an investment of $100,000 in seed money from Jason Calacanis, a renowned Silicon Valley investor. “David Park, the CEO of Altum.Inc is a second-generation Korean-American who is eager to grow his company into a unicorn company at the South Korea, his grandmother’s home country, through various startup supporting programs launched by the Korean government,” TNE Partners CEO Rachel Sung Hwa Yoo said.

Moreover, Medicus AI (Felipe Lopes Athia) from Austria and Bovlabs SAS (Jaikrishnan Radhakrishna Pillai) from France entered the TOP 30 and will receive up to 17.5 million won in settlement support*, business mentoring, connection with domestic companies, seminars and education at the Pangyo Startup Campus until the first half of next year from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Information and Communication Industry Promotion Agency. Rachel Sung Hwa Yoo, CEO of TNE Partners also mentioned, “Not only the TOP 10 winning teams, but also the 11 teams nurtured by TNE Partners are willing to settle in Korea. We will do our best to ensure that excellent overseas start-ups settle in Korea through the 'K-Startup Grand Challenge Program', form a global Korean startup ecosystem, and provide high quality job opportunities to young people through excellent start-ups. I certainly believe that all 11 teams will grow into a gazelle company with excellent capabilities.’

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