2023.11.09

The Invention Lab, an early-stage investor in startups, has announced the successful hosting of the ‘2023 SmartSpace+ Smart City Startup Demo Day’ in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam on November 8 (local time). The event had around 150 local participants from the smart city sector, including university institutions and investors.

The event is co-hosted by The Invention Lab and Innolab Asia and is part of the Global Market Expansion Program (GMEP) organized by the Korea Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development (KISED) and sponsored by The Smart City Association.

This demo day showcased the outcomes of the 10 selected startups participating in the program. It focused on their participation in a global acceleration program, the results of PoC with Vietnamese local companies, and networking opportunities.

Among the ten participating teams are Contactus, an online platform for remote building management; Mewolmejoo, a platform for O4O alcohol distribution; Yaholab, a tutor class matching platform for 3-11-year-old children’s after-school education; addd, a solution for offline and outdoor advertising effectiveness measurement; Bluefrog, an AI service for connecting small businesses with local customers; Jarasoft, an automatic facial recognition and blurring service in videos; Parallel Space, a 3D digital twin solution for online site surveys and real estate facility management; Oneroof, a workspace management solution for digital transformation; and Timwork, a drawing-based smart construction management solution.

The importance of this demo day lies in the fact that startup CEOs discussed the potential of entering the Vietnamese local market based on the results of market research and PoC meetings in Ho Chi Minh.

For instance, “Contactus,” which provides property management services for medium-sized buildings, confirmed the possibility of entering the Vietnamese market for patrol services by conducting chain meetings with Vietnamese large building owners and building management companies. Other startups, such as OneRoof, Timwork, Yaholab, Addd, and Bluefrog, also achieved positive outcomes in exploring the potential of local market entry through intensive meetings with local companies.

Kim Jin-young, CEO of The Invention Lab, said, “Vietnam is rapidly urbanizing under government leadership. Particularly, in 2018, a large-scale digitalization project called ‘Vietnam 4.0’ was announced, and since then, various smart city projects have been ongoing in Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi. Smart cities consist of three layers: ‘applications,’ ‘data,’ and ‘infrastructure.’ In this demo day, the goal is to introduce promising Korean startups selected for each of these layers to the Vietnamese market and provide them with an opportunity to scale up.”

He added, “The Vietnamese market is growing rapidly, and among the 10 startups actively operating in Vietnam from The Invention Lab’s investment portfolio, many are showing high growth rates. Following this event, we plan to actively develop localization and investment-linked programs for the Vietnamese market.”