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From Seoul, a metaverse 3D avatar company, announced on the 18th that it has launched a virtual avatar creation solution 'EDEN' and signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with global IT company Vrinsoft. From Seoul and Brinsoft will promote cooperation in expanding their businesses in Southeast Asia and the Americas, as well as the strategic use of △Virtual Reality Model (VRM) Avatar Solution Technology △ Seeking ways to apply it to immersive non-face-to-face services. Through this, it is said that it will attract innovation in VR/AR content with metaverse 3D avatar solution. From Seoul's EDEN platform will provide a virtual creative ecosystem including various virtual streamers for creators as well as virtual experiences. Developing standardized avatar standards to solve compatibility problems between metaverse ecosystems and establishing avatar SDKs for virtual space developers will be promoted. It also plans to start targeting domestic metaverse users and expand into global businesses in the future through cooperation with metaverse platforms and content producers. Through this cooperation, "we will show global examples of avatar technology and virtual identity solutions", said Choi Hyun-se, CEO of From Seoul. "We predict the impact of VRM avatar technology in various industries such as entertainment, education, and medical care." From Seoul is a company that expands its solution product line through research and development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and 3D avatar customization. Through this cooperation, we expect to strengthen our capabilities in the VR/AR markets in Southeast Asia and the Americas.

On the 13th, the 2023 4th Seoul National University Campus Town Resident Regular Networking Event was completed successfully at the lounge on the 3rd and 1st floor of the startup HERE-RO. A total of 25 people attended the networking event, including not only tenant companies, but also excellent graduation companies, Samsung Securities officials, and prospective startups. Seoul National University Campus Town is conducting various events to create synergy between companies by sharing information and providing opportunities for collaboration between tenant companies and to create a start-up ecosystem through networking between tenant companies and graduating companies. In this networking, through direct exchanges between tenant and graduating companies, business-related networks were established, and great opportunities for identifying trends and obtaining information were provided. In particular, Kim Min-chul, Lee Sung-joong, and Park Bum-soo of Samsung Securities, who signed an MOU with Seoul National University's Campus Town Project Group, attended the fourth networking session to share their opinions with corporate representatives on initial investment. There was also a time for prospective founders who attended to receive a lot of know-how from the officials of the tenant company who are currently running the company. Through this networking, which was conducted more autonomously than before, tenant companies had time to share their business status and difficulties, and graduating companies had time to share their know-how on operating experience. Seoul National University's Campus Town Project Group will continue to provide business communities such as networking, where tenant companies and prospective founders can gain insight into trends and technologies, develop their business careers and create new opportunities.  

Meal care social venture "Nanum Vitamin" won the program "Women in Entrepreneurship" for female youth entrepreneurs of SC First Bank on September 20. SC First Bank's "Women in Entrepreneurship" is a program that discovers female young entrepreneurs and supports them to enter the global market. Nanum Vitamin won the Digital Innovator category out of 10 teams in Tier 1, an early female youth entrepreneur. Nanum Vitamin is a food fintech social venture that improves the accessibility and convenience of meals for vulnerable children using digital technology. In the "Nabi-Yam" application, it is the first to support a good influence store reservation service that provides free meals to vulnerable children nationwide. Kim Ha-yeon, CEO of Nanum Vitamin, said, "We are innovating our children's eating area, which is the most important to parents but still difficult to manage. "I think SC First Bank gave a good evaluation of its fintech capabilities and digital transformation business model. We will continue to lead the digital transformation in the food fintech field."

APGreen Co. Ltd. which provides clean hydrogen production solutions that use low-temperature plasma and carbon as catalysts, won the Excellence Award at the Youth Future Foundation's founding ceremony and the Youth Start-up Support Fund and Office Rental Certificate ceremony held in September. Park Tae-yoon, CEO of APGreen Co. Ltd. gave a brief technical explanation and company introduction of the "low-temperature plasma-based modular cyan hydrogen production device" in the announcement of the excellence award, and also expressed his aspiration as an entrepreneur based on technology management. Meanwhile, about 350 young businesses and young people in Seoul attended the inaugural ceremony of the Youth Future Foundation.Five former and current lawmakers also visited in person and sent congratulatory messages, drawing attention. APGREEN is a hydrogen company founded by Americans and Koreans and consists of members with various experiences and expertise. As an early and founding member of a liquefied hydrogen company, the CEO has an understanding of the hydrogen industry and start-up experience learned in practice, and the director also has experience as a founding member of a hydrogen company and the director of the research department. The head of the research institute is a world-renowned hydrogen authority in the United States and has more than 40 years of hydrogen R&D experience. In particular, APGREEN established Labscale in the U.S. in 2021 and started its business in Korea based on this, and aims to enter the U.S. market by establishing a U.S. corporation and completing the production of prototypes in 2024. It completed attracting investment from VC in the U.S. in August.

Oisa opened a tumblebuck funding page, heralding the launch of the menstrual cup "Oisa Bell." Oisa Bell is a bell-type (bell-shaped) menstrual cup that is inserted into a woman's vagina and receive menstrual blood. It can be used without replacement for up to 12 hours once worn, and has a ring that is easy to remove, making it suitable for beginners. The Oisa Bell consists of three sizes: mini, standard, and plus, so you can choose the size according to your preference. The company explained that the existing menstrual cup had to measure the vaginal length with fingers to select the size, while the Oysabell can be selected according to the expected wearing time or menstrual blood amount regardless of the vaginal length. Oisa also operated a pre-experience group so that you can try on the developed products in advance before crowdfunding. Participants of the experience group said, "There is no feeling and pressure," adding, "It was good to wear it for a long time when going out or sleeping." Oisa is a femtech brand operated by feminine healthcare start-up Dewey Labs and has developed Korea's first menstrual disk "Poy Cup." The Poi Cup was launched in October 2021 through Tumblebuck crowdfunding, and 5,883 sponsors participated at that time to raise about 200 million won, or 2006% of the target amount. This is the highest fundraising amount for crowdfunding in the menstrual products sector. As a tenant of Seoul National University's campus town, Dewey Labs receives free start-up space in Gwanak-gu, supports corporate explanations, participation in Demo Day, and benefits such as linking technology with Seoul National University faculty. Meanwhile, Lim Ji-won, CEO of Dewey Labs, said, "I hope you can easily try menstrual cups through Oisa Bell. We will continue to work on developing various types of menstrual cups to expand menstrual product options."

Meal Care Social Venture Nanum Vitamin won the Excellence Award at the "7th Social Contribution Partners Day" held on September 20. Social Contribution Partners Day is an event that leads corporate linkage with social contribution ideas that solve social problems, hosted by the Korea Social Welfare Council, organized by the Chosun Ilbo Better Future and Social Contribution Center, and sponsored by DGB Financial Group's DGB Social Contribution Foundation. A total of 10 companies participating in this Social Contribution Partners Day had a place to introduce ideas and projects for sustainable social contribution. Among them, Sharing Vitamin is a social venture that seeks to solve the inconvenience of the existing offline-based meal infrastructure for underfed children by converting it digitally, and operates a safe meal care platform that improves the accessibility of meals for the underprivileged. It was proposed to create a "butterfly effect" through sponsorship of meals for underfed children. It received great response from companies while operating a corporate introduction booth and won the Excellence Award. Kim Ha-yeon, CEO of Nanum Vitamin, said, "Our mission is to create an environment where children can grow up healthy through healthy meals. "Our ultimate goal is to create a world where children can grow up healthy with more partners," she said. In addition, Director Kim Eun-seo said, "The Naviyam service is a service that is virtually impossible without the cooperation of the local community, and I am always grateful to the local stores and institutions that participate. I believe we can make a bigger social impact if we work with companies. We look forward to cooperating with more companies and institutions starting with this Social Contribution Partners Day." Meanwhile, Nanum Vitamin has signed a business agreement with Haeyul, a law firm, to provide legal services to underfed children.

Sea navigation startup Mapsea (CEO Kim Ji-soo) recently attended an accelerating program in Jarbrücken, Germany, and won a local Demo Day, get a chance to enter Europe. The IBK Changgong Global Accelerating Program, attended by Mapsea, is a program that supports domestic startups' successful entry into Europe in cooperation with Jalant, Germany, and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology. This program was conducted for 10 innovation and venture start-ups such as IT, AI, and advanced manufacturing that were finally selected through screening, such as the German Jalant State Economic Promotion Corporation and Germany's local AC. Mapsea is a third-year startup that develops Sea navigation and provides Seanavigation services optimized for the needs of navigators through marine data under the vision of sustainably connecting the sea and humanity. Kim Woong-kyu, Director of the Institute of Science (CTO), said, "Matthew Navigation, which combines IoT, AI, and digital twin technologies with marine navigation, is developing a next-generation navigation system that can greatly contribute to fuel reduction and carbon emissions as well as help navigators to enable situational awareness and Voyage Optimization by combining the latest international standard electronic charts, real-time operation information and marine space information." Earlier, through its excellent technology and market verification, Mapsea received domestic and international attention last August by receiving the top prize at the Trade and Connectivity Challenge of Singapore's Enterprise Singapore, which was supported by 400 companies from more than 70 countries around the world. Mapsea plans to collect various sensors and various information on ships and expand overseas sequentially, starting with the launch of AI route recommendation applications optimized for the user's environment at the end of this year. "With this participation in the IBK Changgong Global (Europe) Accelerating Program, we are speeding up our efforts to enter the German market through meetings with local clients," a Mapsea official said. Mapsea, which started its first export to Singapore, plans to accelerate its expansion into the global market through networking with Hamburg, Germany, Europe's three largest ports, through this European program.

    Meal care social venture "Nanum Vitamin" participated in "Try Everything 2023," the largest global startup event in the second half of the year, which runs for three days from September 13. Try Everything is a startup event hosted by the Seoul–si Government and SBA, with 1,500 startups and 150 domestic and foreign investment companies and corporate officials under the theme of "Global, Investment, and Accompany." From September 13th (Wednesday) to 15th (Friday), the company introduction booths of promising startups were operated, and on the last day, a national startup audition demo day was held. Nanum Vitamin participated in "NextRise," which was the largest startup event in the first half of the year, also participated in try-everything to promote its meal care platform "Naviyam." From September 13, the company introduction booth was operated for three days, receiving collaboration proposals from various investment accelerators and corporate officials, and introducing companies and platforms. In addition, it was selected and announced on the final demo day of the national start-up audition held on September 15. In the corporate introduction booth, while sharing the store in the "Naviyam" service and it operated a "1 for 1" event in which both underfed children and participants receive drinks. In She Demo Day announcement, the business model was explained by referring to the user participatory meal card merchant data purification function, the good influence store meal sharing reservation function, and the parent-child joint prepaid charging function to be introduced in the future. Kim Ha-yeon, CEO of Nanum Vitamin, said, "I want to grow into a meal care platform so that parents do not worry about their children's meals." We look forward to cooperation with various organizations so that everyone can keep a healthy meal warm," she said. Meanwhile, Nanum Vitamin recently won the Digital Innovator Award as the winning team in the Women in Entrepreneurship program of SC Bank.

  As a necessary condition for Korea's high-tech start-ups to grow into global unicorn companies, it was suggested that timely investment, sales, and government support programs should be used as prerequisites for successful settlement along with entering the U.S. market."The most important strategy to enter the U.S. market is to use investment, sales, and government support programs together in a timely manner," said Yongbum Kim, head of The Livingston Group's strategy department, in a special lecture by experts on "successful U.S. market entry strategy" in the process of deepening campus town startups at Seoul National University on the 16th.The Livingstone Group is a lobbyist group headquartered in Washington, D.C., that lobbies the U.S. House and Senate for client companies and countries, links between governments, international relations and business development, general public relations advice, and strategic marketing. In particular, it is helping to benefit from U.S. federal and state loans, subsidies, and incentives by utilizing a long-standing network of experts in politics and business, led by former U.S. House Speaker.Seoul National University explained that The Livingstone Group was selected by Bloomberg as "one of the best performing lobbying companies in 2022." In a lecture, Kim explained why the startup Asian market has been relatively good since the COVID-19 pandemic, but the U.S. venture fund situation fell 27% in the previous quarter, forcing the overall global trend to fall, citing an example of a company."The U.S. market has more opportunities than Korea, and the market is already formed, so it is necessary for startups to enter the U.S. market in order to do global scale-up," he said. "Most of the top rankings of cities with global clusters of startups around the world are in the U.S." Asked in which cities in the U.S. are likely to succeed, Mayor Kim advised, "Even top cities (in the U.S.) cannot succeed unconditionally, and more importantly, it is important to understand what infrastructure and characteristics each city has.""One strategy is to start in a city with a well-established infrastructure in consideration of the characteristics of each industry that we want to start a business, and the best area to enter is where customers are, so it has to be different for each company," he added. He cited market research as a necessity to attract investment in the U.S. "In order to attract successful investment in the United States, It need to understand the difference between the market (domestic vs. the United States) , trying to enter and also understand the perspective of U.S. investors," Kim pointed out."Among the various reasons why startups fail, the biggest percentage is 'launching products that the market does not want (42%)', followed by a lack of funds (29%), and a team (20%).In addition, he stressed that Pitch Deck, which can attract investors' attention, is also an important factor, and ordered, "An interesting Pitch Deck that can lead to the next meeting for investors should contain only key elements and have a conclusion to the solution by accurately identifying the problems in the market." Pitch Deck refers to promotional explanatory materials to attract investment. Kim defined sales as the most difficult area and said, "The reason why sales are difficult first time, it takes a long lead time. In addition, sales vary from industry to industry, and sales techniques must vary depending on the environment in which the company is located, he said."The sales process is almost the same as meeting investors, but it's also different," he pointed out, and advised, "It's advantageous to always have a local manager so that he can come out right away when I say, 'I'll bring the director, let's talk over a cup of coffee.'"Head of the department Kim stressed that government programs are important for fair competition with companies in the U.S. "The U.S. is one of the most funded places in the world, and because there are so many government support programs and various programs between ministries, Korean companies should also be supported for competition in the U.S."The special lecture was held at the invitation of the Seoul National University Campus Town Project Group for Gwanak S Valley, companies in Seoul National University Campus Town, and members of Seoul National University. Kim Tae-wan, head of the campus town business at Seoul National University, said, "We will provide better special lectures in the future so that many outstanding companies can come out of Gwanak-gu," adding, "The future goal and dream is that companies that have grown through the support of the campus town project group will be produced as unicorn companies by 2026."

On the 25th, a regular networking (3rd) event for companies operating in Seoul National University Campus Town was held at the lounge on the 3rd and 1st floor of HERE-RO. A total of 39 people participated in the event, including graduation companies and SNU Engineering Consulting Center, as well as companies operating in Campus Town. Seoul National University Campus Town regularly conducts networking to create synergy between companies by providing opportunities for information sharing and cooperation between tenant companies and to create a start-up ecosystem through networking between tenant companies and graduation companies. Starting with the introduction of the program by the business group and the SNU Engineering Consulting Center, the event was conducted through autonomous networking using the introduction of tenant companies and lunch talk time. Tenant companies had time to share their business status and grievances, and graduation companies had time to share their know-how on their operational experiences. The tenant companies said they had a meaningful time because of networking with companies that could collaborate, and that it was a beneficial time to hear the success stories of graduation companies.  

  Dinoz (CEO Jeong Yoon-ji and Lee Ga-young), which runs the mobile app "Yugacrew," announced that it has expanded the operating area of the 1:1 childcare friend connection service "Jjak Crew" to Songpa-gu, Gangdong-gu, Gangnam-gu, and Gangseo-gu in Seoul. As a result, Parenting Crew's "Jjak Crew" service will be available throughout Seoul south of the Han River. Yugacrew is a neighborhood-based O2O parenting community platform that connects mothers living nearby as friends. This year, the number of new users per month is increasing by an average of 45%, and 65% of mothers connected to the childcare crew app are leading to actual offline meetings. "Jjak Crew," which is available free of charge on the "Yugacrew" app, is a 1:1 service that recommends the best child care partners based on the child care profile entered by the user. Using algorithms derived from about 4,000 data, it connects neighborhood parenting friends with well-matched residence, timing of childbirth, number of children, job status, and childcare interests. Since the launch of the app, the "Jjak Crew" service has been operated first in some areas of Seoul. As a neighborhood-based childcare community, "Childcare Crew" has signed MOUs with Gwanak-gu, Yeongdeungpo-gu, and Seocho-gu Childcare Support Centers to cooperate in mutual promotion and plan various programs for childcare families. Our Neighborhood Parenting Group, where mothers and children under the age of 6 can participate together, can be applied on the childcare crew app. "Today, when 90% of Korean mothers experience depression, mothers' parenting burdens and loneliness can be solved through solidarity and connection," said Jeong Yoon-ji, CEO of Dinoz. "We plan to quickly expand the childcare crew operation area to all areas of Seoul and major hub cities by the end of this year." Dinoz, the operator of the mobile app "Yugacrew," attracted seed investment from Bon Angels Venture Partners in December last year, and was selected as the business team of the Chung Ju-young Startup Competition, H-On Dream Startup Ground Fellow, and AWS VC Spotlight in 2023.