Korea’s ‘high-tech utopia’ to welcome 14 startups from SparkLabs’ IoT accelerator

Songdo, Korea’s US$35 billion smart city. Photo credit: Hwan Hyeok Kim.

Sometimes it takes a city to raise a startup. That’s why Seoul-based accelerator SparkLabs is launching its new IoT and smart city program in Songdo International Business District, one of the most prominent smart cities in the world.

“Many people are trying to develop a product for a sector that hasn’t fully been realized […] or fully adopted yet,” Alex Namkung, director of SparkLabs IoT program, tells Tech in Asia. “Part of that requires the ability to either implement or test or validate it in a real setting.”

SparkLabs, which already runs an accelerator program in Seoul, announced its IoT-specific accelerator two years ago. The first batch starts tomorrow, featuring 14 startups from the US, Switzerland, Ireland, Taiwan, South Korea, and Australia. All of them can use Songdo as a test bed for their products, even those working remotely from their home countries.

Built and wired as a smart city from the start, Songdo is a rare opportunity for IoT startups to test their products at scale. For example, if a startup wants to test its air quality sensors, it can plug them into the city and run trials for a few months, says Alex. Likewise, a smart thermometer company could work with residential building developers in Songdo, who may already have property primed for smart technology. SparkLabs would work as a connector, bringing corporations, public entities, and startups together on projects.

“[Being] strategically located at the intersection gives us a very strong vantage point to be able to connect big corporates, public bodies, academics, as well as startups,” says Alex.

The IoT accelerator will invest US$30,000 to US$50,000 per company in exchange for up to 8 percent of equity. However, the program is more about mentorship than funding, emphasizes Alex. In fact, the average amount of funding already raised by the accelerator’s first group of startups is more than US$2.7 million.

“Most of these companies do not need our US$30,000 or greater investment […] and already had products in the market,” says Alex in a press release. “For our next batch, we will have to make a concerted effort to recruit earlier companies at the prototype stage.”

SparkLabs IoT program’s first cohort will cover a range of IoT verticals, from precision agriculture to baking, the majority being hardware companies with industrial applications. After six months, the 14 startups will present at SparkLabs’ demo day next June.

Here’s the full list of startups in SparkLabs IoT program’s first batch:

Elemental Machines

Elemental Machines helps companies in the manufacturing and biotech industry track environmental variables, such as humidity and air pressure, to fine tune their product cycle.

Arable

Arable provides agricultural enterprises with real-time data and predictive analytics for crop growth, harvest timing, yield, and quality through proprietary hardware and analytics.

Falkonry

Falkonry provides an AI service that automates the interpretation of telemetry and sensor data from industrial activities, IT processes, and high-end consumer assets.

BioInspira

BioInspira builds detection grids for real-time and remote monitoring of natural gas leaks using virus-based chemical sensors.

LocusLabs

Drop

Augmented Knowledge

Rokwon IT

IDL

Alt-A

CUBExUS

SecuChip

Oizom

Freestyle