The August D.Day event took place on the scenic Jukdo Beach in Gangwon Province (Courtesy of D.Camp)
Startup accelerator D.Camp’s demo day event dubbed D.Day celebrated its 100th event on Thursday.
The first D.Day event was held in June 2013.
In the first year, just 106 startups applied to pitch their business ideas to venture capitalists and corporate investors. Last year, however, some 1669 startups applied to be one of the four to five startups that make it on stage.
An accumulated 6,874 startups have applied for D.Day speaking opportunities so far.
The special event marking 100 demo days -- no small feat considering the cancellations during the pandemic -- took place on Jukdo Beach in Yang Yang, Gangwon Province.
The August event was jointly sponsored by lifestyle furniture brand Desker and the Korea Growth Investment Corp.
D.Day is one of the oldest startup demo events in South Korea, which has so far allowed 536 startups to pitch their businesses to potential investors.
Fintech startups were among the most successful of the participants, such as Toss app operator Viva Republica Inc., Dunamu Inc., BankSalad, and more.
In September 2017, the parent company of gaming giant Nexon confirmed it acquired South Korea’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange Korbit, which presented at the D.Day demo event.
More than 10% of the pitching startups have been in the healthcare business, while work productivity startups accounted for 8% of the total.
In the last five years, more than half of the startups who made it to demo day were less than two years old.