​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 

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