Betapitch Seoul: these 5 South Korean startups are going to Germany

Betapitch landed in Seoul last week, the globe-trotting pitch contest’s very first visit to Asia. Organized by Betahaus, a startup co-working space and accelerator with locations in Germany and Spain, the event featured 10 of the Korean capital’s best startups.

Apora Ventures, through its local incubator Accelerate Korea, partnered with the Korean government’s Small and Medium Business Administration (SMBA) and the Korea Institute of Startups and Entrepreneurship Development (KISED) to bring Betapitch to Seoul. It also served as Accelerate Korea’s first demo day.

The event’s top five startups will be whisked away to Berlin for a three-month acceleration program at Betahaus. The grand-prize winner will also be invited to compete against the top startups from Betapitch’s other competitions in Berlin, Germany; Hamburg, Germany; Sofia, Bulgaria; Barcelona, Spain; Vienna, Austria; and Campinas, Brazil.

“Betahaus is the biggest co-working community and also the heart for startups in Berlin,” Alina Gratschner, Accelerate Korea program director, tells Tech in Asia. “Seoul, as a fast growing and international tech hub, is the ideal place to bring betapitch to Asia. Our goal is to connect and grow innovative ecosystems globally.”

Without further ado, here are the five startups that will represent the Korean ecosystem in the heart of Europe.

5th place: RX Cycle

Cycling is a great way to exercise, but as with any outdoor sport, the weather doesn’t always cooperate. Sure, you could stay inside and ride an exercise bike, but it’s just not the same. ConsiderC’s RX Cycle is a high-tech indoor cycling solution with tracking and simulation functions that would satisfy even a Tour de France competitor.

The hardware itself puts anything at the local gym to shame. RX Cycle allows a rider to lift out of the seat for sprinting or hill climbing, with a suspension system that tilts it side to side just like the real thing. It even has “real wind effects” – a pair of fans that blow air in your face – that make you feel like you’re moving relative to the speed of the simulation. There’s even a shifting system that’s tied to the bike’s automatic resistance control, so riders have to find the appropriate gear based on their simulated ride.

Speaking of simulations, the RX Cycle companion app features more than 100,000 real rides, from the startup’s local roads in Seoul to the European Alps. It also acts as a fitness coach, recommending rides based on 20 skill levels and progress through 50 workout programs. There’s even a sizing tutorial when you first fire it up, to ensure that the hardware is adjusted just right.

4th place: BbuzzArt

BbuzzArt is an online community for amateur artists, emerging critics, up-and-coming curators, and art lovers of all stripes. The startup hopes to position itself as the go-to social network for the artistic community, and also as a platform for up-and-coming artists to be discovered.

While other online art communities abound, like US-based DeviantArt, BbuzzArt’s emphasis is on fine art, specifically, and making real connections between artist and critic or artist and curator. Users are encouraged to provide feedback for each submission they view and to upvote artists that they think have real-world potential.

3rd place: 04Master

Master Company’s product, 04Master, is like Uber for cranes, bulldozers, and excavators. The startup’s platform matches construction companies with heavy equipment owners based on proximity to the job site. Not only can contractors find the usual brand-name rental agencies, but they can also opt to rent from private business owners who may not need a specific piece of machinery on that given day.

04Master is available on the web and via a companion Android app for contractors on the move. Rental requests can be made 24 hours a day, ensuring that work can continue even in emergency situations.

2nd place: Lollicam

Selfies are, and have been, all the rage in Asia – and among teeny boppers regardless of continent – for years now. Seerslab is banking on the video selfie, with its Lollicam app for Android. Lollicam features pre-processing, real-time editing so that videos can be made to look the way a user wants it to look on the fly, without the need to upload the video to external editing software.

In addition to its filters, effects, and animated stickers, Lollicam also offers free lifetime cloud storage to ensure that a user’s device never runs out of space.

1st place: BeeCanvas

The winning startup, which will also pitch at the Betapitch global finale in August, is JokerPack. Its product, BeeCanvas, is a virtual canvas for anything. A fan of a specific rock band, for example, could use BeeCanvas to aggregate song lyrics, music videos from YouTube, scans of their ticket stubs, and a photo slideshow of a live performance. A team in the advertising industry, on the other hand, could use BeeCanvas as a visual version of Slack – sharing storyboard sketches, video clips, and text scripts for a commercial they’re working on, and all in real time.

Each file a user attaches – be it text, image, or video – can be annotated. The startup hopes it will lower stress for teams collaborating on projects and reduce the amount of messages they have to send back and forth in the process of hashing out and finalizing an idea. Sharing is as easy as sending the custom link that BeeCanvas generates for each project to your colleagues.

“BeeCanvas has global potential,” Carlo Jacobs, Accelerate Korea program development director, tells Tech in Asia. “We can package their product for specialty industries in Europe to help them develop a bigger revenue stream faster than simply going freemium. It has real potential in the high-end film and advertising sectors, and we can personally connect them to players in those industries in Europe.”