**Supporting Fundraising for European Major Venture Capitals: Support for Global Investment and Market Expansion**
SK Telecom announced on the 24th that it will operate an exclusive exhibition hall for AI and ESG innovative startups during the ‘4YFN (4 Years from Now)’ event, a side event of the world’s largest mobile communication exhibition ‘MWC26’, to support their global investment attraction and market expansion. ‘4YFN’ is an expo that discovers and supports promising startups with the potential to participate in the main MWC exhibition in four years.
This year, ‘4YFN’ will be held from March 2nd to 5th (local time) at Hall 8.1 of Fira Gran Vía in Barcelona, Spain, where ‘MWC26’ will take place.
At this ‘4YFN’, SK Telecom will set up an exclusive exhibition hall for startups and introduce collaborative cases and innovative technologies with 15 promising startups in the AI and ESG fields. The 15 companies are Mesacoo Company, Bearing Lab, Broze, Stress Solution, Sixty Hertz, Energize, Airis, Aive, Happiness Project, InvaLab, Chilloen, Coxwave, Conexy, Cubic, and Fornature.
Since first operating an exclusive exhibition hall for startups at ‘4YFN’ in 2019, SK Telecom has participated every year, except in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The current year’s exhibition hall, themed “SKTCH (Sketch) Today, Change Tomorrow,” embodies a vision of mutual growth with startups through collaboration encompassing AI innovation technology and environmental and social value. “Sketch” is a compound of SKT (SK Telecom) and Tech, representing SK Telecom’s collaborative platform aimed at enhancing startup collaboration.
The exhibition will showcase AI technologies applied in various areas such as security, space, and content in real-world industries and daily life.
‘Mesacoo Company’ supplies identity verification technology based on its face recognition AI solution ‘UFACE’ to financial and public institutions including the PASS app of the three major telecom companies. ‘Broze’ offers a ‘Space-Specialized AI Solution’ that digitally implements offline spaces using 3D space automatic generation AI technology. ‘Coxwave’ provides AI service improvement consulting based on user behavior data through the AI product analysis platform ‘Align’ and hosted the ‘Claude Code Builder Hackathon’ with SK Telecom and Anthropic at the ‘2025 SK AI Summit’.
Furthermore, there are companies such as ‘Bearing Lab’ which provides a legal translation specialized AI solution, ‘Energize’ which has developed the AI inference optimization engine ‘Optimum’, ‘Aive’ which is developing distributed GPU cloud technology, ‘Airis’ which has developed an AI X-ray scanner for security, ‘Chilloen’ operating an AI music creation platform, ‘Conexy’ offering a data storage platform based on IPFS (InterPlanetary File System), and ‘Cubic’ which provides synthetic data for AI analysis and learning.
Startups in the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) sector, which solve environmental and social issues with technology, will also participate.
‘Stress Solution’ offers an individualized stress management solution called Healing Beat based on biometric data analysis and has provided stress and sleep management solutions to the SK Knights team. ‘Sixty Hertz’ provides an AI-based renewable energy generation forecast and management solution, having participated in developing the virtual power plant (VPP) map for SK Telecom to improve energy management efficiency. Other innovators showcasing their tech include the ‘Happiness Project’ operating an AI-based mental health management solution, ‘InvaLab’ offering solutions for ecological restoration and management using remote sensing multimodal data, and ‘Fornature’ developing eco-friendly carbon reduction and air purification technology.
In addition to the exhibition, on the 4th (local time) in Barcelona, SK Telecom will host an investment briefing session for major European venture capital (VC) representatives to raise funds for startups. Seven startups, including ‘Mesacoo Company’, ‘Stress Solution’, ‘Sixty Hertz’, ‘Airis’, ‘Aive’, ‘Happiness Project’, and ‘Cubic’, will participate to introduce their technological prowess and business potential to global investors.
Jong-Hwan Eom, head of SK Telecom’s ESG promotion office, stated, “We have prepared an exclusive exhibition hall to showcase the technological capabilities and collaboration achievements of innovative startups worldwide through ‘4YFN’ in MWC26. We will continue to be a strong partner for promising domestic startups by continuing practical cooperation.”