Korea University: The expansion of Korea University’s KU Global Center is leading the global advancement of Korean startups.
Korea University held an opening ceremony for the KU Global Center LA for technology start-ups and young entrepreneurs at Neo Tex Inc., an alumni-led company located in Los Angeles, on October 3, 5 pm local time in the United States. The opening ceremony was attended by Korea University President Chung Jin Taek, CEO Chang Jae-soo of Korea University Technology Holding Company, alumni Park Jung-geun who donated the space, and Korea University student startup company Smartus Korea CEO Son Ho-jung.
Although technology-based start-ups are emerging as the main players in creating national competitiveness, they tend to compete mainly in the domestic market, and in the case of companies pushing for entry into the global market, there are many cases where it is difficult to know from where to start. Korea University opened the KU Global Center in Los Angeles following its opening of offices in Beijing and Silicon Valley to provide an educational platform for startups with dreams of entering the global market, to establish a practical support base, and to actively take the lead in entrepreneurship education.
The KU Global Center LA office is expected to be used as a base for discovering local partners, testing markets, establishing local marketing strategies, and attracting local investment. Above all, it will be a place to share practical start-up know-how through networking with successful local alumni companies.
President Chung said, “We hope that the KU Global Center LA office can be used as a networking and mentoring place with alumni companies that have entered the local market in the United States. In the future, we plan to strengthen overseas start-up support programs to nurture global leaders.”
Smartus Korea, a student start-up company at Korea University that participated in this event, is developing an oral care solution using an optical sensor. This company produced a prototype of an oral care solution through the maintenance program (years 2019-2021) of the makerspace support project operated by Korea University Pioneer Village (KU PI(л)-Ville) and succeeded in attracting investment to secure mass production facilities following the initial investment of the Korea University Holdings. Having received rave reviews from its performance at the CES conference earlier this year, the company is planning to enter the US market in earnest, and plans to use the KU Global Center LA office as a marketing base for local customers.
In addition, Stipop, a student startup company that is developing a global emoticon platform, is a team that has grown through the initial startup package support project (2019) operated by the Korea University Crimson Startup Support Group. It was the first domestic startup to attract investment from global social media company Snapchat. In addition, it has grown into a company with over 20 million global users by receiving an investment of about 4 billion won from companies including Silicon Valley startup accelerators, Y Combinator and Strong Ventures. In May, it was also selected by Forbes as one of Asia’s Under 30 Leaders in Consumer Technology.
Korea University established the Crimson Startup Support Foundation in 2018 to promote student entrepreneurship and promoted the specialization of startup education and support institutions. The Campus CEO Entrepreneurship Contest has been held every semester to nurture student entrepreneurs, and has run a Technology Entrepreneurship course since the Fall 2019 semester. In addition to subjects related to entrepreneurship such as “Campus CEO” and “Venture Management,” the program included subjects on technology-based start-ups such as data analysis and technology commercialization. The Campus CEO Entrepreneurship Contest is held at the end of every semester to discover startup clubs and nurture student entrepreneurs.
Korea University has simplified the approval process for individuals holding concurrent positions to revitalize faculty startups and has discovered excellent technology and entitlement (intellectual property design/redesign). But in addition to that, it has committed 3.22 billion won over five years towards prototype production for commercialization verification and advancements, support for technology startups, investment attraction, and market establishment to secure a growth engine for commercialization and establish a virtuous cycle ecosystem for technology commercialization. Thanks to this full support, about 46 faculty startup companies (not including the 30 subsidiaries of Korea University Holdings) have been established.
Korea University has established a system in which excellent research activities lead to a virtuous cycle of industrial-educational cooperation results such as technology commercialization and the establishment of startups. Since the Korea University Research and Business Foundation was established in 2004, the number of patents registered by professors and students has reached 15,000, of which 4,800 are valid patents. To further accelerate this trend, in August of 2020, Korea University transformed its dedicated technology commercialization office, the Technology Licensing and Commercialization Office (TLO) into a Technology Commercialization Center. In addition to creating commercialization results through the transfer of existing technologies, based on the excellent technology within the school, the plan is to spread technology-based entrepreneurship know-how and achievements to create future new industries and to expand a leading overseas advanced model that will dominate high value-added markets.
Korea University was recently selected as the only university in the country to be selected as 3-stage Leaders in Industry-University Cooperation (LINC3.0) at both the Seoul and Sejong campuses. This can be interpreted as a result of its continuous industry-university-research cooperation and efforts to revitalize the startup ecosystem through startup education, infrastructure expansion, and step-by-step startup investment funding. With the steady increase in professor-led and student-led startups, the investment portfolio of Korea University Holdings has exceeded 100 companies and its corporate value has also exceeded 1 trillion, showing that the university has grown into an important platform for startups.
Korea University Holdings hired an external professional CEO with experience in new technology-based global business in 2019. It now operates an investment portfolio with an AUM of over 45 billion won and invests in and nurtures about 20 deep-tech startups a year. Recently, as a first for a university technology holding companies, it formed a venture capital fund (worth KRW 10.1 billion) made up of only private capital, including funds from the financial sector, and is operating a capital fund that also supports the growth stages following the seed investment. Based on the capital increase of Korea University Holdings, Korea University has secured a total of KRW 20.4 billion in investment resources through specialized sources such as the Bio TIPS Program, the Technology Commercialization Promotion Fund, the Social Impact Fund, and the formation of an individual angel capital association with faculty participation.