KAIST SW Education Center Director's Award
and Direct Entry to Investment Acceleration Program
The Underphase team, a startup club from Dong-Eui University, won the Silver Prize at the 5th KAIST App Startup Program Closing Day Awards Ceremony, which was held at N's Cafe inside Zerotoone Partners in Seoul on December 5, 2025.
The App Startup Program, hosted by the KAIST SW Education Center, requires each team to include at least one current student or graduate of KAIST. The Underphase team consisted of Dohyun Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering; Miju Kim, Jungeun Kim, Chanmin Park, and Minjun Park from the Department of Applied Software Engineering; Dohee Kim from the College of Software Convergence; and Gawon Kim from the Department of Startup Investment and Management. The team was also joined by Professor Hyunsik Seo, a KAIST alumnus and professor in the Department of Startup Investment and Management, who served as their advisor.
The Underphase team participated with their platform "Yojung," a smartphone price comparison platform designed to reduce fixed expenses for mobile phone retailers. They received the KAIST SW Education Center Director's Award, a prize of 2 million won, 4 million won in startup support funds, and a direct entry to the investment acceleration program without screening.
The Yojung platform aims to aggregate fragmented information on smartphone activations in one place. To achieve this, the team developed a system that directly integrates and provides smartphone activation information from wholesalers. Their ability to implement core features based on this system and launch the service in a short period was highly praised.
Team leader Dohyun Kim stated, "We started as a startup club in 2023, registered Underphase as a business this year, and have now secured a system for wholesaler integration. During the winter break, we plan to establish an actual integration pipeline and conduct market validation. Afterward, in January 2026, we aim to attract seed investment and advance our business through the KAIST investment acceleration program."
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