Kyndof Takes Grand Prize at Seoul Fashion Hub Demo Day

Kyndof (CEO Kim Seon-bin), which runs ‘2000Archives,’ won the grand prize at the Seoul Fashion Hub demo day. Seoul Fashion Hub held ‘FASHION HUB SCALE-UP 2024’ for its resident companies on December 23 at the Novotel Ambassador Seoul Dongdaemun in Jung-gu, Seoul.

Seoul Fashion Hub is a platform that comprehensively supports the business founding and growth of early-stage companies, and this event was arranged to expand resident companies' business opportunities and link them to investment. At the event, held as the Seoul Fashion Hub demo day, nine resident companies took part in the pitching, and about 50 outside investors including VCs and ACs and figures from the fashion and distribution industries attended.

The participating companies were nine Seoul Fashion Hub residents in total — Kyndof, Synecdoche, Unnormal, Ivanenets, Runecave, Acceptance Letter Studio, Momentscent, Sizemine and Island Studio — each of which pitched for 10 minutes. The grand prize, the top excellence prize and the excellence prize were selected through the evaluation of professional judges.

Each company presented its own IR pitch, prepared through investment-attraction programs including one-on-one consulting and training conducted in advance to strengthen participating companies' brand recognition and their investment capabilities, before professional investment institutions and fashion industry figures. Afterward a separate networking session was arranged, in which participating companies shared their results and introduced their brands directly, built networks with investment figures and heard opinions across various investment fields.

Six judges took part: Nam Beom-il, CEO of Triangle Partners; Lim Jong-gil, vice president of NextG Investment; Cho Yong-won, director of Nautilus Investment; Kang Ro-yun, team leader at Mark & Company; Kim Seong-uk, senior analyst at Regent Partners; and Kim Ju-yeong, senior analyst at Signite Partners.

After all the companies' IR presentations ended, evaluation gave the grand prize to Kyndof, which runs ‘2000Archives,’ while Momentscent (CEO Park Da-hye), which runs ‘Limpidlab,’ took the top excellence prize and Unnormal (co-CEOs Bae Hyun-ah and Lee Eun-jin), which runs ‘Unuseunnormal,’ took the excellence prize. Myung Yoo-seok, chairman of the Korea Fashion Designers Association, and vice chairwoman Kwak Hyun-joo presented the awards, and Kyndof's grand prize was received by CEO Kim Seon-bin.

Additional support through follow-up investment-attraction programs is planned for the award-winning companies. The organizers plan to continue assisting the growth of resident companies by running various support programs for them, including collaborations that combine cultural content.

Myung Yoo-seok, chairman of the Korea Fashion Designers Association, which hosted the event, said, “I hope this event has given the companies that took part in the scale-up event an occasion to communicate with professional investors and fashion industry experts and to build K-fashion infrastructure,” adding, “Using this event as a springboard, we will build a fashion growth support platform that expands the business opportunities of K-fashion startups and allows companies to grow continuously.”