Korea International Trade Association (KITA) joined hands with Startup Junkie, a U.S. venture catalyst and entrepreneurial support organization, to help South Korean startups to establish business testbeds in the overseas markets.

KITA announced Monday that it signed a memorandum of understanding with Startup Junkie, an organization backed by the Walton Family Foundation, to cooperate on startup testbed initiative and global open innovation.

The Arkansas-based organization is funded in large part by the Walton Family Foundation, a philanthropic organization led by the family of Walmart founder Sam Walton, as well as the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. Startup Junkie also leverages strategic partnerships with multi-national corporations like Walmart, Tyson Foods, JB Hunt and FedEx. Over the last 11 years, Startup Junkie has helped launch over 3,800 new products and helped generate revenues totaling more than $1.36 billion.

Under the agreement, the two parties will help Korean startups to build testbed in commercial facilities of Startup Junkie’s corporate partners and jointly implement enterprise-ready accelerator programs. They will also cooperate on offering products of Korean startups to retailers and partner enterprises, exchanging information on venture environment of Korea and the U.S. and open innovation status as well as sharing resources for startup support, funding, and deal sourcing in the United States, South Korea and Asia-Pacific region.

“In virtue of the successful outcomes from COEX Testbed project, the very first startup testbed project initiated by the private sector in South Korea, KITA expanded the ground for testbed to Lotte Mart in Jakarta, Indonesia,” said Lee Dong-ki, executive director of innovation & startup department at KITA. “KITA will fully assist startups in experimenting their innovations in major overseas commercial facilities of global corporations.”

“Many existing methods between MNCs and startups like the CVC model can be extremely time consuming and corporate regulations may conflict with the startups’ best interests,” said Louis Diesel, Startup Junkie, Head of Asia. “To add, traditional accelerators may be too early-stage and can lack funding for large projects or direct access to tangible testbest environments.

“KITA’s testbed project captures the best of CVC and traditional accelerator models and has already proven to work from last year’s Coex PoC debut. After multiple discussions with KITA, this partnership addresses real needs or issues currently on the agenda of both parties and we’re excited for the work ahead from this strategic partnership with KITA as we strengthen our cross-border hub in South Korea,” Diesel added.

“One of our main goals is to figure out how to build a bridge between the South Korean tech startup scene and the entrepreneurial ecosystem and a flagship-businesses that are here in Northwest Arkansas,” added Jeff Amerine, Startup Junkie Founder and Managing Director. “Seeing the success that’s been gleaned by the links built to Tel Aviv, through the Bridge program, we’re looking to do something similar.

By Choi Mira

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