Picnic Connect announced that it will participate as a co-organizer of CJ CheilJedang's open innovation program 'FRONTIER LABS 5th' and will recruit participating companies targeting promising food and distribution startups.
'Frontier Labs' is a startup incubation program planned by CJ CheilJedang to create the future of the food and distribution industry together through collaboration with promising startups. This year, in the 5th term, CJ CheilJedang, CJ Investment, Korea Agricultural Technology Promotion Agency (Rural Development Administration), and Sopung Connect will jointly participate and select and provide intensive support to early-stage startups with technological prowess and business potential.
The recruitment target is startups in fields that can create synergy with CJ CheilJedang, such as ▲sustainable innovation materials ▲manufacturing and processing innovation and packaging technology ▲digital distribution and marketing platform ▲emerging food brands. Recruitment will be held until May 21, and applications can be submitted through the Sopung Connect homepage.
The selected companies will receive various benefits, including an initial investment of 300 million won, collaboration opportunities with CJ CheilJedang business units, business verification (PoC) opportunities, expert mentoring, and follow-up investment review of up to 1 billion won. CJ Investment will provide 1:1 mentoring by professional investment reviewers, and Sopung Connect plans to strengthen the business capabilities of participating companies through a systematic acceleration program.
Sopung Connect, which joined Frontier Labs for the first time this year, plans to strengthen its support based on its specialized agricultural and food accelerating capabilities. Since 2020, Sopung Connect has discovered and fostered 63 agricultural and food startups through collaboration with institutions and companies, and the cumulative follow-up investment amount for these companies has reached a total of 46.5 billion won. In addition, it is evaluated as a strength that it has a pool of external experts in various fields necessary for startup management, such as human resources, marketing, patents, and overseas expansion, so it can provide customized growth support.
“Frontier Labs is an open innovation program that links practical business collaboration and growth, and focuses on supporting the practical scale-up of startups,” said Kyung-hee Choi, CEO of Sopung Connect. “Based on our expertise and experience, Sopung Connect will continue to provide all-round support so that participating companies can grow quickly and enter domestic and international markets.”
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