Hana Bank Selects 10th Cohort for 1Q Agile Lab

1Q Agile Lab employees are conducting a video conference with Choi Dong-hyun, CEO of Quotalab (bottom left of the screen), using a remote collaboration tool in the meeting room.

[Asia Economy Reporter Minyoung Kim] Hana Bank announced on the 19th that it has selected 14 domestic and international startups to participate in the 10th batch of the 1Q Agile Lab, a startup discovery, collaboration, and nurturing program.

Since its establishment in June 2015, Agile Lab has discovered and nurtured a total of 90 startups up to the 10th batch, creating various successful collaboration cases as a startup mentoring center operated by Hana Bank.

The selected startups will receive extensive support including individual office spaces, business collaboration with operational departments across all Hana Financial Group affiliates, direct and indirect investments, and exploration of global expansion opportunities.

The selection for the 10th batch was conducted based on an untact (contactless) process minimizing face-to-face activities and utilizing non-face-to-face collaboration tools due to the ongoing spread of COVID-19. The selection focused on strategic collaboration among Hana Financial Group affiliates to support startups company-wide, in line with the rapid digitalization of the economy and society triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 14 startups selected for the 10th batch are ▲Dallija ▲Mesacure Company ▲Bomap ▲Ppodeuk ▲SellerNote ▲Spiceware ▲ActionPower ▲Jabber ▲GeoInternet ▲Quotalab ▲Paymint ▲Cogent Labs ▲QF Pay ▲TRAXX.

Among these, Spiceware and Quotalab were decided for equity investment simultaneously with their selection for the 10th batch. Hana Bank plans to actively invest comprehensively not only through 1Q Agile Lab but also by linking with Hana Financial Group affiliates to revitalize the startup ecosystem, which has been rigid due to COVID-19.

Jung Sung-kyu, CEO of Hana Bank, stated, “Through Agile Lab, we have discovered many startups and supported joint businesses and equity investments, growing and developing together.” He added, “We hope Hana Bank’s efforts to create a win-win startup ecosystem and support innovative finance will widely spread throughout the financial and industrial sectors.”

Additionally, Hana Bank plans to establish a global outbound program supporting domestic startups’ overseas expansion and a global inbound program linking overseas startups with domestic business, thereby building a global inbound and outbound support system.

Accordingly, the Agile Lab Global Center will open in the third quarter to support global startups wishing to enter and expand in the domestic market through external collaboration by providing office space and acceleration programs to help them settle in the Korean market.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.