SK Innovation is collaborating with the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development for the fifth consecutive year to foster environmental technology startups.
On the 28th, SK Innovation announced that it held a launching ceremony for the 5th cohort of ‘EGG’ at SYM Office in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, on the 22nd. ‘EGG’ signifies SK Innovation and ventures with green technology collaborating to build a startup ecosystem, with SK Innovation participating in the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development’s ‘Startup Growth Package – Large Corporation Collaboration Program.’
The event saw attendance from officials of the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development, Bucheon Industry Promotion Agency, SK Innovation, and representatives of ten startups selected for the EGG 5th cohort. These companies were selected based on criteria such as business performance, innovation potential, and the possibility of collaboration with SK Innovation’s subsidiaries.
This year, the selection was characterized by the focus on startups with competitiveness in environmental pollution reduction initiatives. The selected startups have technological strengths in areas like digital collection and certification solutions for waste cooking oil, carbon capture, and fire prevention for energy storage systems (ESS). Given their strong link to SK Innovation’s core business areas, they plan to offer intensive support.
SK Innovation and its affiliates will engage in technological collaboration with these startups in the environmental and ESG fields for the next year. Support programs include technology verification using R&D infrastructure, support for holding demo days, and customized mentoring.
Since the start of the first cohort of EGG in 2021, SK Innovation has successfully supported 78 companies in total. Notably, ‘LDCarbon’ from the first cohort signed a memorandum of understanding with SK Incheon Petrochem for the utilization of pyrolysis oil and material development in 2023 and completed Asia’s largest waste tire resource recycling plant in Dangjin this April.
Additionally, the EGG 4th cohort company ‘BNG Partners’ is conducting conformity assessments for the Korean Green Taxonomy (K-Taxonomy) and is jointly building an AI platform with SK Innovation to link businesses with green financial products based on these assessments. They plan to activate services targeting environmental startups, including the EGG 5th cohort, in the second half of this year.
An SK Innovation representative stated, “We will continue to collaborate and provide support during the scale-up stage to help startups with promising technology grow into unicorns in the environmental sector.”