[StartupRecipe] Korea’s Open Innovation Boom

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#Weekly Funding Overview

[Mar.22 ~ Mar.27]

The total funds raised by Korean startups of this week is KRW 121.1 billion.

Company	Industry	Amount	Round	Investors
Mychef	Mealkit	10 billion	Series B
Carmore	Car Rental	10 billion	Series B	Guardian Fund, Aion Asset Management, YG Investment,Bon Angels Venture Partners, TBT
Qrio Studio	3D content	-	Seed	Kakao Ventures, Postech holdings
Kinolights	OTT search platform	-	Seed	Kakao Ventures, Shinhan Capital
Bigsome	Food	100 million	Seed	Series ventures
PINOTBIO	Bio/Healthcare	-		ST Pharm
SHECO		-	Seed	CCEI Gyeongnam, MYSC
Carta	Drone	2.5 billion	Series A	Stick Ventures, Aventures, Titan Ventures, SBA
Nurihaus	Ecommerce	500 million	Seed	Hashed
Welt	Healthcare	6 billion	Series B	Handoc, Smilegate Investment, Posco
Curome BioSciences	Bio/Healthcare	4 billion	Pre-Series A	Quantum Ventures Korea, Hyundai Investment Partners,Devsisters Ventures, Laguna investment,
Space Add	Advertising	3.3 billion	Series B	Ark Impact asset Management, Altos Ventures
Humaster		2.2 billion	Series A	Ark Impact asset Management, Shinhan Alternative Investment Management
Oncocross	Bio/Healthcare	-		Daewoong Pharm
AprilBio	Bio/Healthcare	10 billion		YUHAN
Kream	Resell	20 billion	Series A	Softbank Ventures, Altos Ventures
ICONIQUE	Food	-	Seed	Mashup Angels, Strong Ventures
Beyond Honey	Food	-	Seed	D2SF, Postech Holdings
Robo Arete	Robot	-	Seed	D2SF, Weventures
Lunar Circle	Beauty	-	Seed	Sopoong Ventures
The Check	Software	10.2 billion	Series A
Qraft Technologies	Fintech	10 billion	Series C
Studio Shelter	Media/Content	-		RIDI
Ihateflyingbugs	Education	11 billion	Series B	Coolidge Corner Investment

Major Funding

• AI automated parking control system Parking Cloud has secured investment of KRW 25 billion. It is expanding its automated i-parking zone to more than 100 places every month in line with the contact-free trend.
• Naver’s spin-off resell platform Kream raised KRW 20 billion in investment and accumulated KRW 40 billion in investment. Cream, which is gaining popularity among the MZ generation, is growing 121 percent on average every month. 
• Camore recently raised KRW 10 billion in investment, which is a year and three months since their last round of investment. Camore is an O2O platform that compares the price of rental cars with 435 rental car companies in 56 regions across the country and holds 33,000 vehicles. 
• MyChef, a meal-kit manufacturer, has succeeded in raising KRW 10 billion in investment at a KRW 50 billion valuation. With this investment, the company plans to increase productivity by introducing smart automation plants, join the K-food craze, and seek to expand overseas.

#Trend Analysis

Korea’s Open Innovation Boom

As the number of successful Korean startups increases, large companies that are interested in collaborating with them is increasing. In the past, the focus was on simple support, but now the atmosphere seems to have definitely changed as we can see in active collaboration. Until now, they have supported office space and initial investment after recruiting startups to help startups launch and advance their services, but now focus on actual collaboration by each subsidiary specialize in their support, by partnering with the startups that are aligned with their business.

Other examples of direct collaboration can be seen in cases of big companies disclosing tasks they want collaboration in and startups can offer solutions or business models for them. The government’s Big Star Solver program, which was launched last year, shares the same context. It is a government-led win-win program that has big companies that give problems to solve as assignments and startups solve them, which links up to 2.5 billion won worth of investment. In the first year, LG Display, Naver, and Baemin participated in this project, and based on last year’s performance, the government plans to further increase the size of the project this year.

There has been increase in strategic investment as well. Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance announced that it will make strategic investments in Insure-tech company Bomap and start joint business development. Shinsegae launched a CVC last year and created a KRW 20 billion fund, while Lotte supports startups through providing connections and investments between Lotte affiliates and startups through their operation of Lotte Accelerator. Naver discovers early-stage tech companies through D2 Startup Factory and connects them with Naver, while making strategic investments in companies such as Balan and Brandy that are needed for expanding Naver’s territory.

South Korea’s six largest financial groups have been supporting startups early on since 2015 with the aim of discovering fintech firms. In the retail industry, Lotte, GS Home Shopping, Hite Jinro, Shinsegae, AmorePacific, and CJ are focusing on fostering startups. As vertical startups such as Market Curly and Musinsa started leading the market, the existing retail industry, which felt a sense of crisis, is looking for ways to preemptively discover, invest, and create synergy with their existing businesses.

Recently, the interest of leading conglomerates has expanded to ESG. As ESG is added to the existing startup support sector to carry out government grants focused on topics related to sustainability, such as energy and environment, opportunities are also opening up for relevant startups that did not receive much attention before.

Some critics say cooperation between startups and conglomerates cannot be seen as co-prosperity just because startups provide solutions that larger companies cannot. However, it is a good option for startups as it has the advantage of being able to expand their business in Korea or overseas through the abundant resources and network that large companies have, as well as financial support.