[News Article] Google supports Korean startups' growth, expansion overseas
Google supports
Korean startups' growth, expansion overseas
By Baek Byung-yeul,
The Korea Times - Google Korea's startup accelerator program, ChangGoo, is
serving as a springboard for high-potential startups here, with participating
companies seeing an average 62 percent increase in revenue and a 69 percent
increase in overseas expansion, the Korean unit of the U.S. tech giant said
Thursday. "The ChangGoo
program is in its fifth year and was launched in 2019 in cooperation with the
Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Korea Institute of Startup &
Entrepreneurship Development to help Korean startups grow. From 2019 to 2023,
460 companies participated, and many achievements and overseas expansion cases
were created," Shin Kyung-ja, head of Marketing at Google Korea, told
reporters during a press conference in Seoul. "Many
achievements and overseas expansion cases were created. For example,
Aegiyagaja, a service platform company that introduces places to go with
children, which was ranked first in the fourth edition of the ChangGoo program,
has achieved great results in the domestic market, with the number of users
tripling since being selected for the program. The company is now set to enter
the Indonesian market," Shin added. The ChangGoo program
consists of various growth support programs such as an accelerator program for
indie game developers, workspaces, seminars for developers and meeting
opportunities for ChangGoo program participants. Shin said the
biggest goal of the program is to help Korean startups go global, saying
"this year the program is working with the Google for Startups organization
in Japan to bring Korean startups together with Japanese experts." During the press
conference, three startup CEOs selected for the fifth edition of the ChangGoo
program were also introduced. They are Kwon Ryun-hwan, CEO of Petpeotalk, Yoon
Jeong-ha, CEO of Zamface, and Park Sang-eon, CEO of Medility, whose businesses
have all been greatly boosted by utilizing emergent AI technology. "The fact that
we have been selected for Google's ChangGoo program gives a lot of credibility
to our investors," Medility CEO said, whose Pilleye service helps
pharmacists move from counting pills manually to counting them comfortably and
accurately with AI vision technology. "We look forward to receiving
Google's support, especially in marketing." "We didn't consider
AI services at first, but we had no choice but to use AI technology to meet the
needs of our customers," the CEO of Zamface, a service that recommends
cosmetics based on each user's skin color, said. "We are using AI to
create 64 systematic classifications because customers wanted to know not only
their skin color, but also the health status of their skin." The CEO of
Petpeotalk, which provides Dogibo, a service that monitors pets left at home
through a home cam, said, "we are actively utilizing AI technology for
various services, such as starting recordings when the pet moves and stopping
recordings when there is no movement." Source: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2023/08/133_357253.html
2023.08.18