Seoul Creative Economy Innovation Center Hosts 'Agri-ESG Innovation Day' with Korea Agricultural Technology Promotion Agency

The Seoul Center for Creative Economy and Innovation (Center Director Hwang Yoon-kyung) announced on the 20th the recruitment of startups for the startup open stage meetup program ‘Agri-ESG Innovation day’.

‘Agri-ESG Innovation day’ is a program co-hosted and organized by the Seoul Center for Creative Economy and Innovation and the Korea Agricultural Technology Promotion Agency. It aims to support open innovation in the regional agri-food and ESG startup ecosystem through partnership and cooperation network building between large corporations and startups, and to discover investment cases by connecting with investment firms managing agri-food funds.

This program involves NongHyup, CJ CheilJedang, and HiteJinro. NongHyup focuses on ▲smart agriculture, ▲food, ▲agri-food export, ▲distribution, and ▲ESG; CJ CheilJedang on ▲smart farm, ▲eco-friendly/ESG, ▲K-Food, and ▲smart cooking; and HiteJinro on ▲distribution, ▲eco-friendly, ▲smart agriculture, and ▲agricultural products. They seek to discover outstanding startups to collaborate as new business partners in the agri-food and ESG sectors.

This open stage meetup program breaks away from the traditional format by gathering large and medium-sized enterprises with demand in the agri-food and ESG sectors to discover and support promising startups with high growth potential.

The startup open stage meetup has involved over 1,800 startups and 27 large corporations from 2019 to 2021, resulting in about 280 startups establishing partnerships and cooperation networks. This program consists of 1:1 meetups and investment IR sessions. Upon applying for the meetup, a demand survey for investment IR participation is conducted, and participating investors select IR companies through a first screening process. This demo day is organized to provide opportunities for investment and business linkage by connecting with investment firms managing agri-food funds.

Hwang Yoon-kyung, Director of the Seoul Center for Creative Economy and Innovation, stated, “We hope this event will lead to successful follow-up investments and business connections, becoming a meaningful occasion to lead domestic promising trends in the agri-food and ESG sectors.” She added, “The Seoul Center for Creative Economy and Innovation will continue to strive to discover and nurture outstanding startups with high growth potential to revitalize the domestic agri-food and ESG industries and support stable corporate growth.”