Pulmuone said on the 11th that it held the "2025 Pulmuone open innovation demo day" at its headquarters in Suseo-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on the 10th and announced the results of collaborations with 10 startups pursued this year.
Pulmuone has been hosting the open innovation demo day for three consecutive years in cooperation with the Seoul Center for Creative Economy & Innovation under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. About 70 people attended this year's demo day, including Pulmuone's overall CEO Lee U-bong, head of corporate planning Kim Jong-heon, head of the Pulmuone Technology Institute Kim Tae-seok, officials from the Seoul Center for Creative Economy & Innovation, and representatives of collaborating startups.
About 300 startups applied to participate in the event. This year, the number of PoC (proof of concept) collaboration corporations expanded from four last year to 10, increasing the scale of open innovation. Pulmuone said that participation by internal technology divisions and digital organizations also increased, strengthening the foundation for practical collaboration.
The fields of participating startups expanded beyond existing Foodtech, AI (artificial intelligence), and DX (digital transformation) to Ag-Tech and Blue-Tech, increasing technological diversity. Tied to the public-private cooperation open innovation support program, collaboration with the government and local governments was further strengthened.
The announced projects will proceed to commercialization and investment linkage in the first half of next year after proof verification. Pulmuone will present top and excellence awards by evaluating collaboration completeness, commercialization potential, and ESG contribution, and plans to continue follow-up collaboration with outstanding startups by considering strategic investment and joint R&D.
At this year's demo day, the dedicated open innovation brand "Pulmuone SustainHUB" was officially launched. Pulmuone explained that "SustainHUB" is a new brand that aims to be a "central platform for sustainable food innovation" and serves to connect various innovation stakeholders, including startups, academia, local governments, and investment firms.
Pulmuone overall CEO Lee U-bong said, "Through this demo day, we were able to share collaboration results with startups and once again confirm the direction of innovation Pulmuone pursues," adding, "As achievements in sustainable foods, AI, and Ag-Tech show the applicability of new technologies toward Pulmuone's core strategy of sustainable dietary life, we will continue to actively promote open innovation to secure future growth engines."