Participants pose for a photo shoot at the opening ceremony of Gwanak KB Innovation Hub and Digico KT Open Lab on July 8 at the Gwanak S Valley Startup Center in Sillim-dong, Seoul. Koo Hyun-mo, CEO of KT, Oh Se-jung, president of Seoul National University, Kwon Chil-seung, minister of SMEs and startups, Jeong Ji-won, president of Algo Care, Yoon Jung-hyun, president of BlueSignum, Rep. Jeong Tae-ho, Park Jun-hee, head of Gwanak-gu Office and Huh In, president of KB Kookmin Bank. (Photo: KB Financial Group)

KB Financial Group has produced successful investment and support instances six years after KB Innovation Hub was created.

KB Innovation Hub started as a fintech lab in March 2015 and has supported 140 outstanding startups through July.

Among them are promising startups in the financial sector, such as Sendbird, Agile SoDA, Bank Salad and Bomapp. In particular, Sendbird became the 12th unicorn company (unlisted company with corporate value of more than one trillion won) in Korea, and Agile Soda is close to having an IPO.

Since last year, KB Innovation Hub has expanded support to promising startups in all fields and established itself as a representative cradle of innovation-powered venture companies in Korea.

KB Innovation Hub’s strength is that it can attract various collaborations and investments worth around 20 billion won per year from 13 affiliates of KB Financial Group.

It leads win-win innovation by connecting affiliates that have started open innovation and startups needing growth platforms.

As of the end of July, there were a total of 204 business alliances and agreements between KB Financial Group affiliates and startups, and the affiliates’ investments in startups amounted to 61.1 billion won.

“KB Financial Group quickly introduces innovative startups’ technologies through open innovation, while startups hold demonstrations and accumulate the results of them through KB Financial Group,” said Vice President Han Dong-hwan, head of KB Innovation Hub at KB Financial Group KB Financial Group.
“In this way, KB Financial Group and startups pursue win-win growth.”

Sendbird is considered a representative example of KB Innovation Hub’s “win-win innovation.” The startup became a unicorn company in April by attracting a $100 million investment.

KB Innovation Hub set the stage for growth by actively promoting business partnerships and collaborations between Sendbird and KB Financial Group affiliates.

Messenger-based digital banking services such as Liiv KB Cambodia and Liiv Mate are innovative services created in collaboration between KB Financial Group and Sendbird.

Cash Note, which participated in KB Kookmin Bank’s development of loan products for self-employed people and Quantec, a robo-advisor that collaborated with KB Securities, are also startups that have grown through business partnerships and collaboration with the KB Financial Group.

“There are more than 40 cases of partnerships and collaborations with KB Financial Group annually.” Han said.

“For example, Habit Factory was recently selected as a MyData operator and is in talks over collaborations with KB Life Insurance. The KB Financial Group ranks first in terms of the amount of startup investment and the number of partnerships among Korean financial groups.”

These achievements are attributable to KB Innovation Hub managers who visited affiliates one by one, consulted with working-level staffs and receiving consulting like salespeople of startups.

KB Innovation Hub explains that it focuses on business alliances and collaborations between startups and KB Financial Group affiliates as early startups need proof of concept (PoC) references as urgently as investment attraction.

So far, KB Card has had 69 cases of business partnerships and collaborations with startups, the largest number among KB Financial Group affiliates, while KB Kookmin Bank and KB Savings Bank had 52 cases, respectively, KB Securities had 20 cases, KB Capital had 14 cases, KB Insurance had 36 cases and KB Financial Group and other affiliates had 13 cases.

KB Innovation Hub prepared a 1,058-square-meter collaboration space at a shared office building near Gangnam Station in Seoul. It does not charge any rent to its tenants.

This is in contrast to other support organizations receiving some fees for the use of space and the management of spaces.

However, competition is fierce as only seven companies can move into the office building. Accordingly, KB Innovation Hub opened its second collaboration space, Gwanak KB Innovation Hub, in July in cooperation with Gwanak-gu, Seoul and Seoul National University to expand such collaboration spaces.

“We plan to foster startups less than three years old for one year in Gwanak KB Innovation Hub, and support companies three to six years old in Gangnam for six months, focusing on scale-up through their partnerships with the financial group,” a KB Innovation Hub official said.