The winning startup of DreamPlus TechNode Korean Startup Demo Day, held on June 30th in Shanghai, was Boud, the makers of a flexible action camera. As a reward, the company was given a free booth at the TechCrunch Beijing event in November. The camera startup is one of the four selected companies participating in the DreamPlus Global Expansion Program.
“DreamPlus aims to be the best accelerator in Asia to create an ecosystem where Asia-based startups can help each other to accomplish their dreams. We provide hands-on support for Korean and Chinese startups’ business development,” Lee Moonhwi, the general manager of DreamPlus China said.
The demo day event included a panel discussion on investment trends in China and South Korea, with NP Ventures partner Hyuktae Kwon, DreamPlus China senior director Richard Cai, and iStart founder Cha Li.
“For Korean companies, I’d highly recommend understanding the “Consumption level upgrade (消费升级)” trend in China. Look into beauty, media and entertainment and lifestyle,” Hyuktae Kwon, partner of NP Ventures said. “If you can set up a strong team of your own to run operations in China, that’s the best option. If not, find a strong local partner to maximize your possibility for success.”
Chinese startups, including Strikingly (上线了), Moneylocker (惠锁屏) and TataUFO also shared insights on China’s startup ecosystem and the young entrepreneurs powering it.
The Korean startup pitch competition featured companies in AR, VR, hardware, gaming, lifestyle and education, and was judged by industry experts from ZhenFund, SBCVC, Modern Capital, Cherubic Ventures, Yunqi Partners, NICE Group, and NP Ventures.
Winner: Boud
Boud is the maker of lifestyle action camera PIC. As the camera is made of flexible material, it can transform to be fixed on your head, arm, leg, bike, bag or belt to take pictures and film videos. The PIC camera was listed on Indiegogo last year, and bagged CES 2016 Innovation Award in the digital imaging category.
Creative Bomb makes educational game apps for pre-school-aged kids, improving cognitive ability, creativity and musical abilities. Currently the company has merchandising partners in SEA, with 2,000 daily downloads from Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. The three versions of apps are available at $3.99 USD on Google play and iOS Appstore.
Adring 3DK is a mobile audio advertising platform that plays audio advertisements while calls are dialing. Once a user downloads Adring 3DK to their phone and makes a call, they will hear a 5 second advertisement where Adring rewards users with additional points. After the call, the user can get more information on the advertisement they heard and get more reward points.
7pmBand makes game content, mobile-based Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR) content, using their graphic resources. Its AR content is mostly used for education, exhibition, and public relations purposes.
SSAM runs cross-border e-commerce for Korean products. The company has an app that connects Korean merchandisers to Chinese merchandisers, and sends Korean brand products directly to Chinese customers. The company partners with Leferi, a beauty entertainment content platform that owns 70 beauty reporters based in Korea, China and SEA, to realtime broadcast its Korean products.
ARmode is a 3D animation maker that has developed original content since 2009. Focusing on creating animation for kids through online platforms, the company plans to localize its content for Chinese viewers.
Villy is a crowdfunding-based P2P lending platform. The company takes a 1% service fee cut from the client’s company, and has reached the BEP in one year. The company also allows users to diversify investment by paying a 20,000 KRW (116 RMB) subscription fee.
DingDongMall is an O2O traveling platform that provides ecommerce functions to sell Korean products to Chinese customers. Currently, more than 100 million Chinese travelers are traveling to Korea and mostly uses Chinese travel O2O apps like Qunar and Dianping. To target these Chinese travelers, the company provides detailed information about trips to Korea and sell Korean products.
TheAlphaLabs creates comfortable and affordable AR head mounted displays and AR glass. Selected by Shenzhen-based hardware accelerator HAX, the company has a patented technology called S.M.O.S Technology (separated modular optical system) to make world’s smallest wide-angle AR vision system.
Image Credit: DreamPlus