The World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA) announced the successful conclusion of the final event of Citypreneurs 2024 Gyeonggi with a demo day held at the Suwon Convention Center on September 25. Fifteen global start-ups from five countries—South Korea, Italy, Singapore, Indonesia, and Portugal—competed to present solutions addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and urban issues in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.
Over the course of five weeks, starting in August, start-ups attended workshops and one-on-one mentoring sessions led by experts on topics such as ESG, impact measurement, global expansion, investment strategies, and Product Market Fit (PMF). Various experts from WFUNA’s partner organizations—including BigBang Angels, Ascendo Ventures, Sustinvest, Plug and Play, Altos Ventures, D3Jubilee Partners, HGI, Mirae Science and Technology Holdings, Translink Investment, and Good Neighbors Global Impact—participated as mentors and judges for the Citypreneurs program.
A total of six start-ups were selected as winners, receiving combined prize money of KRW 15 million. Among them, Simple Planet, a biotech food-tech company developing future functional food ingredients through cell agriculture, won the WFUNA Award. Recognized for its contribution to sustainable food production through the development of cell-based, high-content alternative protein ingredients, Simple Planet was granted an opportunity to participate in WFUNA’s Impact Start-up Ecosystem Conference in Geneva, which will be hosted this upcoming 4th of November. Itgreen also won the Impact Award, securing the same opportunity to participate in the conference. Other winners included Poscore, Lumitics, Sovement, and WeavInsight. These awardees have demonstrated innovative business models rooted in creativity and social value, and are expected to play key roles in the Asia-Pacific start-up ecosystem.
Teta Banks, the Chair of Executive Committee of WFUNA, emphasized that “The era where one hero could save the world is long over. Only continuous efforts and challenges, made from each individual’s position for our ‘shared future,’ can bring about change. WFUNA will continue to support future-oriented start-ups that contribute to closing the global digital divide and mitigating the climate crisis.”
Since its inception in 2017, Citypreneurs has held start-up competitions across various cities, aiming to address SDGs and urban issues. Citypreneurs 2024 Gyeonggi was co-hosted by Gyeonggi Province, the Gyeonggi Provincial Government, and WFUNA, in collaboration with the global start-up platform South Summit.
