Hyundai Motor Group said on the 11th that its in-house startup incubation program Zero One Company Builder spun off three corporations it had nurtured over the past year.
The startups to be spun off are Positive Flow, WhereB, and JARBIS.
Positive Flow is a company that develops a mattress system to provide the optimal sleep environment.
It attaches artificial intelligence (AI) sensors to the mattress to detect the user's sleep state, then automatically adjusts temperature and humidity for deep sleep.
In addition, users can check sleep data collected from the mattress via an application (app) or manually control temperature and humidity.
Positive Flow is recently discussing collaboration plans in the sleep tech field with Hyundai Engineering & Construction.
WhereB is developing industrial safety technology based on high-precision location sensors.
Sensors attached to worker tools such as hard hats and vests, and to industrial vehicles such as automated guided vehicles and trucks, receive UWB (Ultra-Wide Band) signals.
It also developed a method that links a worker's smartphone with an industrial vehicle without additional sensors.
UWB has little interference with other radio waves, allowing more accurate positioning than Bluetooth or near-field communication (NFC).
The goal is to identify the positions of people and vehicles within a 10 cm margin of error to prevent collisions in the workplace.
Since last year, it has been conducting demonstration projects to advance the technology outside the company, including at Kia's Hwaseong PBV Conversion Center.
JARBIS is a company that develops standard tools and coding automation programs needed for automotive software (SW) development.
The goal is to prevent requirements from being written in non-standardized ways during software development or errors from occurring due to human coding.
It targets as its market auto parts companies and others that are struggling with the transition to software-defined vehicles (SDV).
Recently, it carried out a demonstration project for SW development for electronic control units (ECU) with Hyundai Motor and Kia partners such as DH Lighting, Pyeong Hwa Holdings, and Keyang Electric Machinery.
With these three companies newly spun off, the number of in-house startups that have become independent from Hyundai Motor Group has increased to 44.
Hyundai Motor launched its in-house startup discovery program in 2000 as Venture Plaza and expanded it into Zero One Company Builder in 2021.
Startups selected by Zero One Company Builder receive up to 300 million won in development funding. After one year of product and service development and commercialization, they decide whether to spin off as independent corporations or commercialize in-house.
Noh Gyu-seung, executive director of the Zero One Office at the Hyundai Motor and Kia future strategy division, said, "We will continue to produce innovative and creative startups in various fields along with active open innovation."