Renault pens MOU to support local start-ups

Stephen Marvin, executive director at Renault Group, third from right, and Kim Jong-gap, chief executive director at K-ICT Born2Global Centre, fourth from right, pose for a photo as the two groups agreed to foster Korean start-ups. [RENAULT SAMSUNG MOTORS]

French auto giant Renault Group will help aspiring Korean start-ups to advance overseas.

The mother company of Korea’s Renault Samsung Motors announced Friday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the state-run K-ICT Born2Global Centre to set up its own office called Renault Open Innovation Lab. With the government-backed center, Renault Group said it will effectively foster mobility-related start-ups born in Korea.

The center will help the fledgling start-ups to establish a global network, hold demo days, consult on R&D and attract investment. It is set to open in October inside the K-ICT Born2Global Centre in Pangyo, Gyeonggi.

“Korea sells a lot of cars compared to its population and has affluent infrastructure in terms of IT so it is the perfect testbed for new technology before applying it to the global market,” said Stephen Marvin, an executive director at Renault Group. “With the MOU partnership with the center, we are going to excavate start-ups with potential that we can collaborate with and are going to help them advance abroad after testing it in domestic market,” the director added.

The French auto giant has been selecting countries that it evaluates as having technological potential to create successful start-ups in order to establish Renault Open Innovation Labs. It has set up labs in Paris, Silicon Valley in the United States and Tel Aviv in Israel. The lab in Korea is the French company’s first in Asia.

“The latest MOU agreement will help Renault Group to find start-ups here that could be helpful for the auto company,” said Kim Jong-kap, chief executive director of K-ICT Born2Global Centre.

“This center’s know-how and Renault Group’s long experience in the field will create synergy effects to boost domestic companies to raise their competitiveness as well as advance to overseas countries,” the director added.

K-ICT Born2Global Centre is a subsidiary of the Ministry of Ministry of Science and ICT that opened in 2013.

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]