All-Inclusive Agri-Food Tech Startups... 'AFRO 2023' to be Held for 3 Days from the 26th

A food technology startup expo, where tech companies in the agri-food sector?the future of K-agriculture?gather to showcase promising new technologies, will be held for the first time and on the largest scale in Korea. This is an opportunity to see how promising agtech and foodtech future technologies, which were introduced earlier this year at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, USA, are being developed in Korea all in one place.

The "2023 Agri-food Tech Startup Expo" (AFRO), held from the 26th to the 28th at COEX (Hall A) in Samseong-dong, Seoul, will bring together about 250 startups in agtech, foodtech, green bio, and more to showcase their technologies, services, and products. The expo will feature a comprehensive lineup of eye-catching new technologies, including AI-powered smart farm solutions and hardware technologies, autonomous tractor driving, agricultural robots, AI-based unmanned robotic milking machines, plant-based artificial leather, cultured meat in foodtech, and AI-based pet recognition in pet tech.

The expo is hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and organized by the Korea Agricultural Technology Promotion Agency, NH Nonghyup, COEX, and the Korea Foodtech Association. It was created based on the judgment that a specialized agri-food tech expo focused on the startup ecosystem?covering investment, sales channels, technology, and networking?is necessary to nurture global tech companies that can grow from unicorns to decacorns in the agtech and foodtech sectors, beyond simple product exhibitions and on-site sales promotions. The event is expected to attract not only startups but also large corporations, venture capitalists (VCs), and buyers related to foodtech.

In the agtech sector, which is leading innovation by applying cutting-edge ICT technologies such as AI to traditional industries like crop cultivation and livestock farming, leading domestic smart farm startups such as AValve, IOcrops, FarmPro, Green, AgUni, ABCLabs, Seongil Farm, and FarmConnect will participate.

AValve (CEO Wonjun Lee) is an AI smart farm solution specialist company known for its outstanding smart farm software technology that uses autonomous drones to capture images of plants and analyze them with AI to maintain an optimized environment for crops. It attracted strong interest from buyers worldwide, including the USA, the Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia, at CES earlier this year. It has also entered the Vietnamese smart farm market.

IOcrops (CEO Jinhyung Cho) operates advanced greenhouses that are autonomously controlled remotely through AI by measuring crop growth status with AI robots equipped with cameras. From its office in Bangbae-dong, Seoul, it manages farms totaling 40,000㎡ (about 12,000 pyeong) in locations such as Miryang, Gyeongnam; Gimje, Jeonbuk; and Sangju, Gyeongbuk through remote cultivation.

FarmPro (CEO Byungok Park) is a livestock ICT specialist startup. It provides a service that attaches sensors to cows' ears to measure data such as body temperature and activity in real time, analyzes it with AI, and notifies farmers via mobile about the cow's health status, estrus, and calving time. It has supplied over 1,500 devices to more than 30 livestock farms nationwide in cooperation with the Korea Agricultural Technology Promotion Agency. It has also signed a technology supply contract with Argentina, a major livestock country.

At CES 2023, which gathered global technology trends earlier this year, John Deere, a US agricultural machinery manufacturer known as the "Tesla of agriculture," delivered the keynote speech. The autonomous robot tractor that autonomously drives through fields and weeds out weeds has become a symbol of future technology trends. In Korea, the introduction of autonomous mobility technology is enabling remote control and autonomous driving, and the development of agricultural automation technologies such as harvesting and pest control is rapidly advancing.

Gint (CEO Yonghyun Kim) developed the agricultural machinery autonomous driving solution PLUVA auto, which can be freely attached to major domestic brands of tractors, rice transplanters, and riding cultivators, enabling autonomous driving via smartphone apps or one-touch switches. It raised 16.5 billion KRW in Series B funding and is developing a level 3 autonomous driving platform technology while expanding into overseas markets such as Indonesia and Cambodia.

Rendezvous (CEO Joohong Park) aims to solve labor shortages caused by the aging rural population with robots. The harvesting robot "Family," developed by Rendezvous, recognizes crops such as paprika and tomatoes through computer vision and can harvest about 10 kg per hour using a robotic arm.

Many green bio companies that combine advanced bio and life science technologies with agriculture and food sectors to create new added value will also attend.

RootsLab (CEO Myungwon Kim) is a material specialist company developing alternative materials extracted through waste upcycling, such as eco-friendly color cosmetic materials based on phytoliths, a waste product derived from pear skins or seeds in the core.

GreenContinue (CEO Inho Jeon) is developing alternative leather materials from cellulose extracted from domestically grown cactus leaves, and HN Novatec (CEO Yanghee Kim) is advancing alternative meat using shiitake mushrooms, rice flour, and imperfect vegetables.

Pangse (CEO Seongjun Lee), a startup supported by the Korea Agricultural Technology Promotion Agency with technology and R&D funding, is challenging the commercialization of cultured meat by applying bio 3D printing technology.

Foodtech companies are also key players. Hanwooyeon (CEO Yongsung Woo) provides eco-friendly personalized aged Korean beef based on big data and AI, and DeepPlant (CEO Chulbeom Kim) analyzes meat data through meat deep-aging technology.

Camelotech (CEO Woncheol Jung) will showcase a system that automates the manufacturing process of herbal medicine, allowing patients to receive and take herbal medicine within five minutes after consultation. EloyLab (CEO Kwangsun Yoo) will introduce a hyperspectral AI foreign substance sorter that uses hyperspectral and AI technology to detect foreign substances that were previously undetectable.

During the expo, various side events will be held to strengthen networking with domestic and international private investors. A promising company demo day linked with the D.CAMP "pre D.DAY" program by the Bank Foundation for Young Entrepreneurs will be held to support investment. Additionally, programs such as individual in-depth meetups (1:1 matching between investors and startups) are planned to expand investment opportunities for companies participating in the agri-food venture startup activation support project.

Other programs include ▲a conference to review the current state and discuss the development direction of the agri-food investment ecosystem ▲venture nurturing company MD evaluations and MD meetups for sales channel support ▲technology-related programs such as national patent technology briefings, technology transfer consultations, and the "Startup Open Antenna" talk show to promote open innovation (OI) ▲and a mock investor relations (IR) presentation by global accelerating support companies.