Korea is facing the structural crisis of a declining population. The government is pushing to attract 300,000 international students under "Study Korea 300K," but people on the ground are not feeling much change. Cases keep repeating in which hard-won talent leaves again after failing to overcome language barriers and poor organizational adaptation.
Stellup, an Edtech startup founded in Nov. 2024, found the answer to this problem in "advancing Korean-language education."
Stellup Chief Executive Oh Min-ji, who recently met with ChosunBiz, said, "We have moved past the era of Korean 1.0 for travel and into the era of 'Korean education 2.0' for employment and long-term settlement," adding, "A practical Korean-language infrastructure that determines foreigners' employment and settlement will become national competitiveness."
Stellup provides practical, work-focused Korean-language education services for foreign job seekers and employees. Its flagship service is the mobile-based learning platform "Hangling," which supports both real-world job preparation and on-site adaptation through job-specific conversational expressions and mock interview simulations.
The cumulative number of learners is currently around 10,000, and collaboration is expanding mainly with corporations and public institutions. Oh said, "Because it is an app-based education service that can be used without time and location constraints, we are seeing particularly positive responses from workers at industrial sites in the provinces."
Stellup's goal is to shorten the average six months it takes foreign workers to adapt to their jobs to one to two months. To that end, it plans to record real voices from industrial sites and build a set of "standard practical expressions" by selecting frequently used phrases.
Specialized training for office workers is also in the works. It covers overall practical competencies, from how to use the HWP program, which is unfamiliar to foreigners, to Korean-style sales and marketing communication. The idea is to build "soft infrastructure" that leads talent from North America and Europe to choose Korea over Japan or China.
Oh said, "If Korean society perceives foreigners only as labor that does tough work, it will be difficult to move toward a society that respects diversity," adding, "Education infrastructure must also be built so that white-collar talent can choose Korea."
Stellup's main revenue model at present is services dedicated to corporations and institutions. Collaboration with the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives is one example. Oh explained, "At sea, failed communication can immediately lead to loss of life," adding, "We digitized the federation's existing training materials and reorganized them into content specialized for fishing sites."
Through an administrator page, corporations can check foreign employees' learning achievements in real time and also use Stellup's service as an HR management platform to send batch notices on voice phishing prevention or safety rules.
Oh said, "From a corporation's perspective, if it hires foreigners and satisfaction falls due to lack of communication, it will no longer try to hire foreigners," adding, "Stellup aims to reduce this risk and create a virtuous cycle in foreign hiring."
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology underpins its ability to support learners of diverse nationalities and levels at the same time. Stellup is focusing especially on collecting speech data by nationality.
Learners from major countries such as Japan, China and Vietnam have different Korean pronunciation and error patterns. Stellup's AI analyzes learners' weak points based on this data and adjusts the curriculum in real time. It also has a verification system that remembers incorrect expressions, transforms them into similar sentences and tests the learner again. Only after passing two or three verifications is the expression considered "acquired."
Based on its accumulated data asset, Stellup also plans to take on a "Business Korean certification" business. It has obtained approval from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to issue a private certification and is preparing a proof of concept (PoC) first for learners from Vietnam.
In the long term, the strategy is to expand into a settlement support platform. Oh cited the reason, saying, "Korea's foreign talent policy is still run with a focus on numbers," and "The sense of isolation and maladaptation experienced after joining a company is relatively neglected."
Oh said, "If the government designs macro policies, Edtech corporations that hear foreigners' voices closest on the ground can play a practical role in supporting adaptation."
Stellup is currently raising seed funding. Having confirmed initial marketability, it plans to accelerate technological advancement and market expansion.
Ultimately, it is placing emphasis on creating synergy through strategic mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The idea is to complete a single foreign-settlement value chain by combining with services related to visas, telecommunications and hiring.
Oh said, "By 2030, our goal is to build recognition that 'Hangling is the place to prepare for Korean,'" adding, "In 10 years, we want to become a corporation that helps Korea move toward a society with true diversity."