- The second edition of South Summit Korea will take place from October 1-2 at the Convention Center in Suwon, South Korea, with startups representing 12 different countries, one more than last year´s edition.
- Spain is the second country contributing the most startups to the competition after South Korea (5), with finalist projects from the Region of Murcia (A4Radar), the Basque Country (Alias Robotics) and Galicia (Kreios Space).
- The 20 finalist startups were selected from more than 430 applications submitted from 60 countries.
South Summit Korea 2025, co-organized by IE University in collaboration with the Government of Gyeonggi, GBSA (Gyeonggi Business & Science Accelerator) and Unimotto, will celebrate its second edition on October 1-2 at the Convention Center in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. This edition already has the 20 finalists of its Startup Competition, coming from 12 different countries (one more than last year), who will compete to be crowned the best startup in the fields of Deep Tech and Artificial Intelligence.
With 3 finalist projects in the competition, Spain consolidates itself as the second country with the strongest presence at South Summit Korea 2025, only surpassed by South Korea. From the Basque Country, Alias Robotics focuses on the development of cybersecurity systems to protect robots and automated systems from cyberattacks. Meanwhile, the Murcian startup A4Radar has created a contactless predictive maintenance radar for electrical substations, which prevents failures and extends the useful life of assets. Completing this year’s Spanish representation at #SouthSummitKorea25 is the Galician startup Kreios Space, which is developing the first fuel-free electric propulsion system for satellites, using atmospheric gases as propellant.
The other 16 finalists are: Pix Force (Brazil), Hera Materials (Chile), Ochy (France), Aima Labs, (Greece), Infloso AI (India), Capex (Japan), OmniShelf (Singapore), MoCon (South Korea), HISTRANGER (South Korea), SSenStone (South Korea), Digitalog Technologies (South Korea), IDEATION (South Korea), Link Robotics (Turkey), SignForDeaf (Turkey), Mantis-AI (United Kingdom), cheqd (United Kingdom) and Noxi (United States).
The selected startups underwent a rigorous evaluation process among more than 430 applications from 60 countries, highlighting the international projection of the event. Of the 20 finalist projects, 7 are already profitable and 8 are in the growth stage. In addition, 11 startups have raised more than one million US dollars in investment and 9 exceed 500,000 dollars in turnover, of which 6 surpass the one-million mark.
The selection was carried out by a committee of investors and experts in Deep Tech and AI, who assessed factors such as innovation, growth and scaling potential, investor appeal, and team talent.
The experience of last year´s edition confirms the impact of this event on the entrepreneurial ecosystem. In 2024, the award-winning startups were: Dtonic (South Korea), Global Winner for its work in AI and data infrastructure; Norma (South Korea), as the Most Disruptive startup; Aqarios (Germany), which won the award of Best Team; VSL Labs (Israel), recognized as the Most Sustainable; and Tumi Robotics (Peru), which was awarded as the Most Scalable startup. In addition to international visibility, their participation in South Summit Korea provided them with strategic connections with investors and key ecosystem players.
In this year´s edition, the #SouthSummitKorea25 program will once again bring together leading figures in Deep Tech and Artificial Intelligence, who will share their vision of the future of these industries. More than 50 international speakers – including prominent startup and scaleup founders, investment fund representatives, and leaders of the global ecosystem – will take part in agenda focused on the development of these technologies and strengthening connections with the Asian entrepreneurial ecosystem.
About South Summit
South Summit is the global platform that brings together all players in the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem to foster the development of business opportunities among them. Its main event is South Summit Madrid, co-organized with IE University, which across its 14 previous editions has hosted more than 42,500 startups. Its Startup Competition has produced more than 1,500 finalist startups, including 9 unicorns, with a 90% survival rate and 19 billion US dollars raised in investment.
After editions in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina, South Summit held its fourth edition in Brazil – also co-organized with IE University – last April 2025. This latest edition brought together more than 23,000 attendees from 62 countries, including more than 3,000 startups, 800 speakers, and 900 investors with an investment portfolio valued at 215 billion US dollars. South Summit Brazil is already preparing its fifth edition, which will take place from March 25-27, 2026, in Porto Alegre.
For more information: https://www.southsummit.co/
