COMEUP 2020, the most prominent global startup festival in South Korea, is being held virtually from November 19 to 21st. Day one of the event saw many insightful panel discussions, talks, speeches, presentations by experts, startup founders, investors, governance people on subjects like the COVID-19 crisis, post COVID-19 era changes, digital healthcare, environment, politics, etc. The event is held through multiple channels, and attendees could access the event live on YouTube, Naver TV, Kakao TV’s ComeUp channel, and the www.kcomeup.com website.
Besides the main conference, the COMEUP 2020 event also gave a platform to several emerging startups to present their services and products to investors, mentors, agencies globally.
Demo-Day & Awards for K-Startup Grand Challenge startups
K-Startup Grand Challenge is a startup inbounding program organized and financed by the Korean government. For the last 3 months, 55 participating international startups have been in an acceleration program in Pangyo Startup Campus, preparing their business for the Korean market. COMEUP 2020, officially gave viewers a sneak peek at the 55 startups from 14 countries competing in the K-Startup Grand Challenge.
The purpose of this event was to select 25 final teams through Demo Day event. The final 25 teams receive settlement support to continue their business in Korea. Also, the top 5 teams receive grant for their success.
The top five startup teams that received grants for 2020-21 were Grand prize to Ommo Technologies, second prize to Rocketship, third prize to Technology, fourth prize to Regulaxis SAS and fifth prize to Heart Force AG. Minister Park Young-sun, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS), South Korea gave the K-Startup Grand Challenge awards to the top five teams amidst a gala evening hosted for the global startups.
K-Startup Grand Challenge has continued to promote South Korea as a global leading startup hub since 2016 with the fifth program having 2645 applicants from 118 countries, which represents a 33% increase from last year.
Promotional opportunities for 120 COMEUP STARS
COMEUP STARS are the 120 global and Korean startups selected from a list of 1075 applications this year, which was a record high for the event. All the COMEUP STARS startups got the support for the creation of corporate promotional videos and online booths free of charge, and additional opportunities to promote themselves to global investors, online investment, expert counseling sessions, and senior-junior networking.
The COMEUP Stars’, were selected through a month-long global online application process from July 24 to August 23. 1,076 innovative startups from 89 countries worldwide had submitted their applications for a competitive rate of 9:1, and 120 companies were ultimately selected after going through a 3-stage assessment process. COMEUP Stars startups will
The startups underwent three stages of evaluation involving application documents evaluation, expertise evaluation, open evaluation and selection from the COMEUP Organizing Committee.
Selected startups were divided into the ‘Rocket League’ and ‘Rookie League’. The Rocket League had 84 exceptional startup companies that present a vision in accordance to the 12 sessions of K-Quarantine, Policy, Digital Healthcare, Environment, Open Innovation, AI & Big Data, Robotics, Remote Work, Manufacturing, Commerce, Education, Entertainment, and Distribution. The Rookie league has 36 startups with less than 500 million won in investment within its last three years of operation. To know more about the COMEUP STARS, you can register on the website and check out the Online Pitch Sessions.
Special Session
Talk with SLUSH CEO
beSUCCESS media group CEO and executive director of COMEUP 2020, James Jung, had a talk with Miikka Huttunen, CEO of SLUSH, one of the world’s leading startup and tech event held in Helinski every year. This year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event had to be cancelled.
Miikka talked with James regarding building SLUSH into a known brand, supporting startups and tech companies throughout the world, and connecting European investors with startups of the rest of the world. They also discussed the challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis, where large scale events like SLUSH had to be canceled or postponed, and the alternate ways to hold such conferences move forward. They also talked about COMEUP 2020 and the Korean government’s initiatives to support the Korean ecosystem.
Side Events
Founder Networking sessions
The founder networking sessions at the COMEUP 2020 are designed for emerging startups to network with senior startups and Q&A through real-time chatting. CEO of Market Kurly and COMEUP 2020 Organizing Committee Chairperson of the Civil Organizing Committee Sophie Kim lead the founder networking session. Other Startup founders that participated to mentor the COMEUP STARS were Yoon Sup Choi, CEO of Digital Healthcare, Ho-Young Ban, CEO of Perfect,, Chi Weon Kim, CEO of Seoul Wise Hospital, Sae Ju Jung, CEO of Noom.
Investment Workshop(KB Investment)
There was also an investment mentoring workshop organised by KB Investment where Ji Ae Lee, Director of KB Investment was the speaker. Startups can meet investors in real-time chatting at an online event and ask them questions under this side event.
Besides the side events, the COMEUP 2020 also had backstage Q&A sessions with the panellists of panel discussions.
Koreatechdesk.com is covering the entire event for its global readers and will be bringing on more concise and informative features on the 3-day event of COMEUP 2020, so keep following the updates. For participating in the event live – global participants can log on to www.kcomeup.com website or follow their YouTube Channel.
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COMEUP 2020 DAY 1: COMEUP STARS & K-Startup Grand Challenge