9 promising Korean startups have been selected by the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) to participate to the K-Content Expo 2018 in Bangkok from June 28th to June 30th.

I had the opportunity to meet and interview the representatives of these 9 startups.

Here is what they have to say:

1) Mimi de Bichon (Baruck Co., Ltd.)

I sat down with Match Kim, Director of Baruck Co., Ltd.

What is Mimi de Bichon?

Bichon and his friends are a series of cartoon characters with a French inspiration. The Mimi de Bichon brand features the main characters on different products, from T-Shirts, Pillow Covers and Bed Sheets, to phone cases, stationery and cosmetics.

There is also a Coffee Shop concept of Cafe de Bichon.

How do you distribute your products?

In Korea we have an online store as well as a physical store. In other countries, we sell mainly though licenses. We already have partners in continental China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau.

What are you expecting from your trip to Bangkok?

We are looking for local partners to license our brand.

For more information about Mimi de Bichon, please visit http://www.mimidebichon.com

2) Pingo Entertainment

I sat down with Seul-Gee Yoo, COO of Pingo and Sophia Kim, Producer of Pingo.

What is Pingo Entertainment about?

We produce TV Series and 3D Animations for kids broadcasted on TV and Web.
We also license our content to other countries and other media.

Tell me more about the company?

Pingo was created in 2016 and we now have 29 people in our team. Most of them are specialist in animation and 3D movies.

What are you expecting from your trip to Bangkok?

We are looking for local partners, potential investors and co-producers.

For more information about Pingo Entertainment, visit http://pingo.kr

3) Flitto

I sat down with Roy Choe, Business Development Manager of Flitto.

What is Flitto?

Flitto is a global crowd-sourcing translation platform on web and mobile. The translation are human-powered, which means that they are done by humans, not by machine (unlike Google translate for instance).

A machine only translate by finding the best match in a database. A human is capable of including context, cultural references and nuances.

Everyone can request a translation or apply to become a translator.

As of today, Flitto is available in 173 countries and in 23 languages. The company claims 9 Million users worldwide and 3 Million translators.

The translators get paid for their services, but Flitto does not take any commission.

How do you make money?

Translation services use text, images and voices. Flitto gather all these translation requests and the correct answers in a database. Flitto owns the largest database of very accurate, human-made, translations in several languages that we can then sell to corporate clients like Microsoft, Tencent, Samsung or Baidu.

What do you expect from this trip to Thailand?

We want to build awareness, get more users and more translators for the Thai language and meet potential partners and investors.

For more information about Flitto, please visit https://www.flitto.com

4) Caption Look by ILEDI (International Language Education development Institute)

I sat down with Deok Hoon Kim, Director of ILEDI.

What is CaptionLook.com?

CaptionLook.com is a service created by ILEDI. It’s a unique way to learn a foreign language! Basically users select a topic and jump into a conversation through a role play. By selecting a movie or searching for video scenes, users get the opportunity to practice the language in a real-life situation, to record themselves and to check the spelling.

By becoming one of the characters in a movie or a video, they learn a foreign language through a role play.

How big is the company and what markets are you in?

So far ILEDI is a small 2-year old company of 5 people, privately-owned, but we already have partnerships and patents in the USA, India, China, Japan and of course Korea.

What are you expecting from your trip to Thailand?

We are looking for partners with content to develop our content offer and break into the Thai market.

​For more information about CaptionLook.com, please visit CaptionLook.com

5) Jaedam Media

I sat down with Sung-Joo Moon, Producer of Jaedam Media.

What is Jaedam Media?

We are a publishing company producing Digital Comics and Webtoons. These are basically cartoons for the web and mobile.

Fans of comic books and cartoons want to be able to read their favorite stories or discover new ones on their laptop or their mobile phone.

How do you make money?

We sell the webtoons by the issue, just like a regular book. People usually get a free trial with one issue and then decide whether they want to buy more.

The new trend now is also to make a movie from a digital comic book or a webtoon. We sell the licence to a producer or we produce our own movies.

What are you expecting from your trip to Thailand?

We are already partner with Ookbee in Thailand. We are looking for licencing partners to distribute our content, and for content partners to create more local content.

We are also looking for Thai film makers to produce local movies from our comic books.

For more information about Jaedam Media, please visit http://www.jaedam.com

6) Marvrus

I sat down with Helen Lee, Director of Marvrus.

What is Marvrus?

Marvrus is an EduTech company specialized in AR and VR. We create interactive experience for people to learn easily

Can you give us an example?

Yes: equipped with a VR headset, students are immersed in real-life scenes with native English speakers where they have the opportunity to listen, speak and interact depending on the content.

What languages do you teach?

Right now we teach English for Koreans (and soon for Japanese and Vietnamese). We would also like to start teaching Korean in Southeast Asia as there is a strong demand.

What are you expecting from your trip to Thailand?

We are looking for partners and also customers from Thailand. We also consider the Thai market on the long run.

For more information about Marvrus, please visit http://marvrus.com/

7) POPJOY

I sat down with Peter Kang, CEO of POPJOY.

What is POPJOY?

We are a Mobile Game development that makes video game based on very famous animation movies and cartoons. For instance we have a partnership with Cartoon Networks and we produce several games based on their content.

We also partner with companies for game development. We have just announced a new partnership with GARENA (now SEA) in Southeast ASIA!

How do you make money?

We mainly make money from licencing our games and our services.

What do you expect from your trip to Thailand?

We are looking for more content partner to distribute our games or to create new ones.

For more information on Popjoy please visit https://popjoy.co.kr/en/

8) XrisP

I sat down with Kate, Producer of XrisP.

What is XRISP?

We are the creator of the first roller coaster character in an animation movie! Nori, the roaller coaster boy, is the main character of a famous animation movie in Korea, but also of an indoor park set to open very soon in Germany and in China.

What is your business model?

Our business model is based on licencing (animation movies) and merchandising (characters). But we have also developed a very unique concept of indoor theme park with digital interactive playground. Our first clients are in Germany and China but we expect to sell more licencing across the world.

What do you expect from your trip to Thailand?

We are meeting a very large company here interested in our concept of indoor theme park for the Thai market.

For more information on Xrisp please visit https://www.xrisp.com/

9) Yoon and Company

I sat down with Jessie Ko, from the content business department of Yoon and Company.

What is Yoon and Company?

What are a content production company. We produce our own Korean Drama, for TV but also for the Web. We sell them in Korea and abroad. We also act as an agent for other Korea production companies willing to sell their content abroad.

What makes you a startup?

We are the only content production company from Korea coming to Thailand to find a local partner to produce local dramas. We would like to help producing local content with our international expertise.

Content on TV is usually financed by licencing fees and advertising, but how do you make money with your web content (Web Drama)?

Usually in Korea a Web Drama (which is much cheaper to produce than a TV Drama, and much shorter) is financed by a sponsor. The topic is usually related to the sponsors activity. We would like to expand this business model internationally.

For more information on Yoon and Company please visit https://www.yoonncompany.com/

For more information on KOCCA and their activity, please visit their website.