KITA (Chairman: Jin-Sik Yoon) and Korea Development Bank (Acting Chairman & CEO: Bok-gyu Kim) co-organised NextRise 2025, which kicked off on Thursday, 26 June at COEX, Seoul. NextRise is the largest startup fair in Asia.
The country of honour for this year's NextRise is Germany. The country sent a 47-membmer delegation comprised of a government delegation led by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) along with a total of 21 public institutions and startups from innovative industry sectors such as Germany Trade & Investment (GTAI). Germany will operate a dedicated pavilion, where multiple forums and demo day events will be held. Well-known German companies, including Mecedes Benz, BMW, Beiersdorf, Deutsche Bahn and Lufthansa will seek avenues for cooperation with Korean companies through seminars and meet-ups.
Taking this years' NextRise as an opportunity, KITA plans to strengthen collaboration with other global scale startup fairs and support cooperation and innovative growth among startups at a global level. This year, influential figures from the startup fair sector, including François Bitouzet, the CEO of VivaTechnology from France, Leif Lindner, the CEO of IFA from Germany and Richard Ferraro, the Director of Mobile World Congress (MWC) from Spain will gather in Korea for the first time and engage in meetings with at least 100 large companies, venture capitalists and startups from all over the world and discuss ways for cooperation among global-scale innovative ecosystems.
Through his congratulatory remarks, KITA Chairman Jin-Sik Yoon mentioned, "I sincerely welcome all global innovators and industrial leaders to NextRise, the largest open innovation platform in Asia" and added, "In a world of opportunities and challenges coming from AI, deep tech and green transistion, KITA and the Korea Development Bank will act as a bridge of encouraging ideas to develop into technologies and technologies to develop into new industries and eventually help drawing a blueprint for next generation industries".