Mercedes-Benz Korea has begun the fourth edition of its startup nurturing program, ‘Start-Up Autobahn Korea,’ and is now recruiting participating companies.
Start-Up Autobahn began in 2016 at the Mercedes-Benz headquarters in Germany and was introduced in Korea in 2020 as the seventh iteration worldwide. Over the years, it has cultivated a total of 31 promising companies by providing expert mentoring, networking opportunities, and funding support—establishing itself as a key collaborative initiative by Mercedes-Benz Korea.
This year’s Start-Up Autobahn Korea will include new participant organizations such as the Korean-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Seoul Chamber of Commerce and Industry, alongside a total of 12 partner companies and institutions including Hanwha Systems and LG Electronics. They will work to foster the creation of new growth engines for up to 12 domestic startups across nine fields including future mobility, digital transformation, sustainability, the metaverse, and AI, while promoting the development of the startup ecosystem.
This year’s theme for Start-Up Autobahn Korea is ‘the convergence of technology and services,’ aiming to build an ecosystem where large corporations and governmental institutions can innovate together with promising startups. Through this program, participating startups can experience opportunities like collaborative project execution and structured strategy development, potentially leading to actual product launch opportunities based on their performance.
The ‘Selection Day’ taking place in June will finalize the selections from the registered startups, and through project pitching and networking events, each startup will be assigned a partner company. From August onwards, a 100-Day Program for technology verification (PoC) will commence in collaboration with the partner companies.
Among the companies that participated in the last three years of Start-Up Autobahn Korea, ‘Deepfine’ and ‘Mofic’ were invited to the Start-Up Autobahn Expo Day at the German headquarters last July, becoming the first domestic enterprises to present their services and technologies. Additionally, five domestic startups attended the technical exchange event ‘Deep Dive’ held at the German headquarters last November, gaining valuable international event experience that has translated into real growth momentum.
Currently, Korea and Germany are the only countries that have nurtured over 30 companies through the Mercedes-Benz Start-Up Autobahn program, which is currently being held in seven countries worldwide, and only Korea, Germany, and India have hosted this program more than four times.
Thomas Klein, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Korea, stated, “Through Start-Up Autobahn Korea, which has been ongoing since 2020, we aim to identify promising companies with progressive ideas and excellent technologies and help them realize their potential. Having served as a bridge for domestic startups to global expansion through three successful projects, we are committed to ensuring that more ideas and technologies gain prominence on the global stage through this initiative.”
This year’s Start-Up Autobahn Korea is open for applications to any promising startup with excellent technologies and business models through the official website, available from today (24th) until the 26th of next month.
By Lee Sang-jin daedusj@autodiary.kr