POSCO Establishes Itself as a Hub for Discovering and Nurturing Venture Companies
The 20th POSCO Idea Marketplace Held Online
Six Promising Startups Selected... 111 Excellent Venture Companies Discovered Over 10 Years
Second Cohort of In-house Venture 'PoVentures' Launches with Six Teams
[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] POSCO is taking the lead in expanding the venture ecosystem through substantial support from discovering excellent venture companies to investment.
POSCO held a demo day for venture companies selected at the '20th POSCO Idea Marketplace (IMP)' and launched six teams for the 2nd term of 'PoVentures,' an in-house venture nurturing program aimed at discovering future new growth businesses.
This event was conducted with only a small number of participants and live-streamed online in accordance with strengthened social distancing measures due to the spread of COVID-19.
The selected venture companies held corporate presentations at Changeup Ground and planned detailed business roadmaps with technology and investment advisory groups via video conference. Investors and prospective entrepreneurs also participated online to have Q&A sessions with the venture companies.
Among the six venture companies selected in fields such as energy and bio, Beyond Honeycomb, which operates a 'Robotic Restaurant' where artificial intelligence cooks and sells food at a chef level beyond just food ordering, and CarbonN, which separates carbon dioxide generated during seasonal processes to produce liquefied carbon dioxide supplied as raw material for carbonated drinks or welding gases, attracted attention.
Idea Marketplace is a program to discover and nurture early-stage startups. POSCO was the first large corporation to discover 111 excellent venture companies and invest 20.3 billion KRW over the past 10 years since 2011. Previously, support was targeted at venture companies less than seven years old, but from this year, the target was changed to prospective entrepreneurs and promising startups less than three years old to strengthen support for early-stage ventures.
Additionally, on this day, POSCO launched six teams for the 2nd term of 'PoVentures,' an in-house venture program introduced to spread a creative organizational culture and discover future new growth businesses. The selected in-house venture teams will undergo up to one year of incubation before deciding on startup establishment, and during the incubation period, they can receive benefits such as office space, marketing support funds, and mentoring.
Notably, among the 12 teams selected through the 1st term of 'PoVentures,' more than 50% showed a high startup rate with seven teams successfully establishing startups within one year. PoRegen and EomTech, alumni of the 1st term, applied for 'Challenge! K-Startup,' jointly hosted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Science and ICT last November, and were recognized for their technology and growth potential, winning the grand prize.
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PoRegen developed a blended material that can replace cement by processing by-products generated during ferronickel smelting and currently supplies products to 25 construction sites. EomTech manufactures construction and infrastructure materials that can replace asphalt or paving blocks by combining by-product slag and waste plastic.
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