Seoul Center for Creative Economy & Innovation (Seoul CCEI) is an innovation hub that supports entrepreneurs which is located in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The center plays a role as a network hub which makes a bridge among companies with high technology. There are diverse support programs for startups and small businesses, including office space, mentoring, funding, investment attraction, market development and collaboration among the government, municipalities, local universities, research institutes and corporate partners.
Especially, Seoul center said that it aims to focus on open innovation projects between conglomerates and small businesses this year. Under the mass production and mass consumption system, large-scale conglomerate-oriented growth was possible, but now is the time for large companies to cooperate with venture companies to introduce a fast-moving and challenging growth method. The center is making efforts to steadily support venture companies and secure core capabilities of the open innovation ecosystem. The open innovation project finds promising start-ups with new ideas and technologies, and introduces them to large companies that want business cooperation with them, which promotes a win-win cooperation that provides opportunities for both business partnerships.
The Seoul Center for Creative Economy & Innovation is the hub and platform for start-ups and the cradle of innovative start-ups. And as an incubator, the center will discover and nurture future leading startups and will contribute to national economic development and job creation.
Video reviews will help you to choose products: Indent Corporation
Indent Corporation’s video review platform “V Review” won the grand prize at the “2020 Non-face-to-face Business Challenge” hosted by the Seoul Small and Medium Venture Business Administration.
Internet shopping malls that use “V Review” are said to have a 20.97% conversion rate that resembles products in shopping carts while watching product reviews through videos. E-Commerce is a popular video-based shopping mall platform.
“V Review” is a platform that promotes product sales by allowing shopping mall visitors to review videos by uploading videos directly to Internet shopping mall product details pages.
It is famous for its excellent marketing tools to build consumer consensus with lively reviews from users who use the product themselves. In particular, video reviews are placed at the top of the product details page to minimize page departure rate.
Customers of the “V Review” platform, which easily helps Internet shopping malls review videos, are in various industries, ranging from pet-related industries to jewelry, household interior products and simple snacks, with the conversion rate of products being more than five times different depending on video reviews.
‘Hair suit’, a custom-made wig: Match
MATCH Co., Ltd, a style wig brand startup company that is drawing attention from young hair loss people, has attracted investments in Series A. The company redefines wigs as a part of fashion, not just fake hair that covers only the hair loss area. ‘Hair suits’ as a slogan to describe the company is also based on this management philosophy, which means a fashion item for hair.
MATCH Co., Ltd focused on sophistication and differentiation to provide aesthetic satisfaction that creates style beyond functionality. It is a custom-made wig that is supplied with high-quality materials from seven countries to implement young and sophisticated styles that were not in the existing wig and is manually produced to match the shape of the customer’s face, head shape, parting, and amount of hair.
In particular, the hair styling service, which can be privately groomed in partnership with high-end barber shops, is an advantage of MATCH Co., Ltd
Base Investment, which conducted the pre-series investment A, said it highly valued the spirit of challenge to redefine the nature of the product and innovate the customer experience by jumping into the old and stagnant market called wig.
Non-face-to-face medical care: Medihere
Medihere, a non-face-to-face medical care solution company such as telemedicine, prescription and membership medical counseling, launched unlimited telemedicine membership services for Koreans around the world who have difficulty in face-to-face care after COVID-19.
Korean students and Koreans in the U.S. were unable to receive proper medical services in the U.S. due to triple barriers such as expense medical costs, long waiting times and difficulties in language communication. The Medicare service is directly connected to primary care physicians in Korea and the U.S., who have more than 10 years of experience, by chatting within five minutes of the request for medical treatment, and can be treated by video call if necessary.
Currently, telemedicine is temporarily allowed in Korea due to the pandemic, but according to IBIS World, a global market research firm, the U.S. telemedicine market is a blue ocean market that grows 34.7 percent annually from 2014 to 2019.
The membership price is 119 dollars (about 150,000 won) per year around the world, excluding Korea, and unlimited telemedicine counseling is available at 14,200 won per month in Korea.
Eco-friendly lunch box: ForGreen Solutions
In the era of non-face-to-face, those who are not free to eat out and tired of home-cooked meals are taking care of their meals with lunch boxes. More and more consumers are buying lunch boxes at convenience stores across the country, and the waste of lunch boxes that are piled up in proportion to this is a big concern.
The ‘For Green solution’ is a company that is expanding its scope through various adventures. This start-up company can make a trial to manufacture a reusable EPP thermos box, a multi-use lunch box made of eco-friendly coconut shells, and to develop the patent of intellectual property rights for porous materials.
Song Sun-young, CEO of For Green Solution, said, “After running a company specializing in lunch boxes for five years, I came to think of eco-friendly container packaging after seeing container packaging that is heavily consumed and wasted,” continues to challenge to enter the global market with disposable containers using eco-friendly materials.
Jewelry made of traditional Korean paper: Clessidra
Clessidra is a jewelry company made of hanji, a traditional Korean paper. It is said to have modernized traditional Korean culture by interpreting traditional Korean paper in a new way with modern production techniques and modern design.
In particular, it has eco-friendly and antibacterial functions with lacquer finish, which is a traditional Korean finishing method, and has excellent waterproof function through several finishes.
The recently commercialized “Wind Hanji Earrings” and “Wanna Hanji Earrings” feature light weight that can be blown away by the wind. The weight of a pair of earrings is 2.15g. It is designed to make one end slightly curved in a unique color of hanji so that it looks three-dimensional from any angle of front, back and side. Won Hana’s earrings are circular earrings with a total of nine colors based on the unique color of hanji.
In the past, they were so durable that they used hanji to make armor for combat. Long-lasting eco-friendly earrings and hanji earrings that bring back tradition are good design products that promote Korean beauty to foreigners.
Store energy safely: BA Energy Co., Ltd
BA Energy Co., Ltd. is a professional company that develops ESS (Energy Storage System).
ESS is a technology that stores eco-friendly energy such as wind power, biomass, and solar energy in batteries and transmits it to power grids when necessary. ESS Energy Home is a major product of the company that is specialized in energy storage. It is currently being commercialized and sold as a management space optimized for storing Energy Storage System (ESS) in solar power plants. Currently, about 50 products are supplied and operated.
The company is also preparing for ESS overseas business. The ESS business, which has an early market in the global market, is a state-of-the-art product that can drive Korea’s exports after semiconductors if only safety issues are solved. To that end, BA Energy Co., Ltd. opened an office in India last year as a base for overseas exports, and is responding to the demand for Energy Storage Systems to replace diesel generators in the Indian market.
Keep close with K-pop stars: Infludeo
Infludeo, an SNS-based membership communication platform that directly connects global K-Pop fans and artists to form a strong fandom, has been launched in earnest.
The first artist to meet global fans through Infludeo is Hyo-Jun, who appeared on Mnet’s “I Can See Your Voice 5” in 2018 and drew attention with her charming voice reminiscent of American rock group Maroon 5’s vocalist Adam Levine and 10cm’s Kwon Jung-yeol. Since then, Monster X, Purplebeck, Dustin and Jung Won have opened the Infludeo page.
In particular, on October 1, the powerful singing diva Ailee, who has a strong global fandom, opened an SNS fan page through Infludeo. With the opening of Ailee’s Infludeo page, it is expected to draw attention as a platform for K-pop artists’ stronger SNS fandom.
Infludeo is designed to share small daily lives with fans through this platform in line with the non-face-to-face era caused by corona worldwide.
Various contents such as “Only You,” a secret message that seems to have been sent to me by an artist, and “Weekly Video,” a video message that allows you to see new images of the artist every week, are expected to be presented.
