Farquhar VC (FVC) announced on Thursday its successful run of its inaugural startup accelerator with South Korea’s Twin Ventures in partnership with Daegu Metropolitan City and Daegu Center for Creative Economy & Innovation.

The Global Investment Capacity Building Program comprised of 6 promising Daegu startups, which underwent an intensive schedule of obtaining Southeast Asia startup ecosystem insights from leading ecosystem experts such as Liew Jiashing (Pollinate) and Felicia Ong (XNode), and regional VC investors such as Jean Yeow (Golden Equator
Capital) and Audra Pakalnyte (First Move), Farquhar said in a statement.

Coinciding with South Korean President Yoon’s first visit to Singapore, the Global Investment Capacity Building Program’s Demo Day took place on October 9 at the ACE Ideation Centre, which was attended by VC investors Hussein Suleiman (JDI), Eugene Teo (Antler), and Harry Zhang (Korea Investment Partners).

As part of the Demo Day, Julie Choi (Partner Director, Tenity) and Lee Jin (cofounder/COO, Tictag) participated in a fireside chat to share about their insights on Singapore and South Korea.

In particular, Choi advised the Daegu startups to embrace the diversity of Southeast Asia markets and its corporate cultural nuances, while Lee emphasized on the need to integrate the best of both worlds and to leverage on South Korea’s advanced technological infrastructure and Singapore’s hub for startups.

Several MOUs and partnerships between South Korea and Singapore are inked at the Global Investment Capacity Building Program Demo Day, with KOTRA Singapore Director-General Baek InGi and ACE Singapore CEO Patrick Lim serving as witnesses.
– South Korea’s Textway signed a partnership with Singapore’s Tictag, to co-deliver LLM-based projects
– South Korea’s Lemoncloud and Singapore’s EMERGE Group will embark on a POC, which will enable EMERGE to be the first to trial Lemoncloud’s serverless DevOps technology
– South Korea’s Daegu Startup Hub (DASH) signed a partnership with Singapore’s FVC, to support mutual advancement of startups and to explore potential joint fund formations.

FVC Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer Jason Su said, “FVC is grateful to be a trusted partner by the South Korean innovation ecosystem to enable startups to scale beyond domestic borders. We look forward to sustain our efforts in accelerating the growth of startups across the two countries and geographical regions with like-minded partners.”

Established in 2020, FVC has invested into more than 40 global startups to enable their growth through targeted market-access with its network of Mid-Sized and Large Corporates. Its recent investments include Spark Systems (that recently raised a Series C round from strategic investor ATFX) and EMERGE Group (which formed a strategic partnership with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation to accelerate Malaysia and South East Asia as a key regional player for digital gaming transformation).

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