Six startups to watch out for in 2015

On Thursday, Digital Entertainment Ventures (DEV) Korea hosted a demo day, showcasing the fruits of 8 startup teams who attended their acceleration program.

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Each team demonstrated and showcased their startup products and services after returning from a month-long acceleration program in New York, focusing on workshops and development towards penetrating the U.S. market. DEV provided training in presentations and pitching to investors, insights on what the American market expects, localization of design and more.

There are 8 startups who participated in the program and 6 of them pitched their products at MARU180.

Richslide

Richslide isn’t all smoke and mirrors… well, at least not the smoke. Richslide combines mirrors and video projection with Android powered hardware that’s connected to the cloud. Imagine picking your nose while staring at a mirror and watching a video on ‘screen.’ Richslide’s motion-sensing device enables videos to be displayed on a mirror only when people are near it’s vicinity. Already boasting current partnerships with many major companies around Korea, Richslide eventually hopes to expand to other markets. Vegas, anyone?

PinStory

Pinstory wants to become a multilingual platform for Chinese tourists visiting Korea. By crowd-sourcing reviews of Chinese establishments, Pinstory wants to remove the language barrier that gets in the way of not just expats, but Chinese tourists who want to enjoy all of what the mainland has to offer.

Mushroom

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Website: N/A yet

Mushroom wants to disrupt the art market, particular with the way people discover and curate fine art. Art enthusiasts can browse and ‘curate’ the artork they love and Mushroom will learn your tastes and interests through both big and small data. Art may be subjective, but the current system of curation sure isn’t and there’s a lot of starving artists out there.

TappyToon

Korea boasts an insane amount of talented webtoon artists, but its hard for them to connect to their global fans. TappyToon aims to make purchasing comics as easy as iTunes or Netflix and with over 2,100 weekly ‘episodes’ released per week, Korean manhwa fans have plenty to choose from. By offering high quality comic experiences, official translations, and a digital store, TappyToon offers curated platform of global exposure to Korean artists who want to connect with their international fans.

moonROK

KPop is all the rage and as the wave continues west, so does opportunity. moonROK not only partners with Korean media outlets to deliver breaking news about Kpop artists, but moonROK also offers them in English. Co-founder Hannah Waitt is already a well-known personality not just in the online Kpop scene, but has also appeared numerous times in Korean shows. moonROK is not just for news content, but also growing into an interactive database of Korean artists and upcoming concerts.

Soundmate

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Website N/A

Soundmate is a social network for the music fan in all of us. Geared towards the younger generation getting ready to rage hard through the night, Soundmate’s webapp provides a clean way to check out what your friends are listening to, as well as an algorithm that helps you discover new music.

 

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Eddie Cho

echo@venturesquare.net

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