Martial Arts, Beyond Remote Meetings in the COVID-19 Era, Startup Advances Overseas Demonstration

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] The Korea International Trade Association announced on the 24th that the overseas testbed project (Pre PoC) conducted at Lotte Mart in Jakarta, Indonesia, starting from the 1st of this month, has successfully concluded, attracting great interest from local investors.

This project, aimed at providing domestic startups with opportunities to apply and verify their innovative solutions and technologies in real infrastructure environments such as multi-complex facilities and the supply chains of large corporations, involved seven Korean startups: PlusTV, a remote digital advertising management platform; Quix, a cold chain quick delivery agency platform; Holoholic, a 3D hologram advertising technology company; and PaintFarm, which produces special paint that converts glass and walls into digital screens.

The Trade Association’s Startup Global Support Office and Jakarta branch collaborated to support one-on-one matching with 38 local buyers and venture capitalists (VCs) who showed high interest based on on-site verification, facilitating 64 consultations. During the testbed period, VC investment consultations worth $3.2 million, product purchase consultations worth $2.57 million, and licensing and service export consultations worth $1.35 million were conducted.

A representative from Alchera, which introduced a facial recognition-based automatic temperature measurement solution, said, "After local verification and meetings, we received feedback that separate technical verification data specialized for Indonesia, where the population wearing hijabs is large due to Islamic cultural characteristics, is necessary. Localization is the most essential aspect when startups enter overseas markets, and this testbed project was a great help."

A representative from Lotte Mart Jakarta said, "Thanks to the implementation of the testbed, we were able to directly experience the technical completeness of the startup solutions and greatly increase our understanding. Advertising agencies cooperating with us also showed great interest and conducted detailed consultations with the participating startups regarding product specifications, sample purchases, and minimum order quantities."

Cho Sang-hyun, head of the Startup Global Support Office at the Trade Association, said, "Traditional open innovation between companies was inefficient because valid data did not emerge during the technology verification stage after several meetings, leading to failed collaborations. However, the testbed is a desirable model where technology is first verified, and then meetings and contracts are made based on that. We will actively promote testbed projects with various regions and companies to support the global scale-up of domestic startups."