Seoul Startup Summit Doubles Investor Meetings, Draws $140 Million in Deal Flow

Seoul's city-backed startup festival Try Everything 2026 more than doubled its one-on-one investor meetings this year, recording 1,141 of them against 541 in 2025. The two-day event, held Sept. 9-10 at Dongdaemun Design Plaza, drew 8,025 participants, including 1,457 visitors from 67 countries, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government. Potential investment under review reached 202.4 billion won, roughly $140 million, up about 12 percent from the previous year.

The numbers matter beyond the festival itself. Seoul has spent years positioning itself as a global startup hub, competing with Singapore, Tokyo and Shanghai for founders and capital. A city-run event that converts greetings into term-sheet conversations is the clearest signal yet of whether that ambition is working.

Who showed up in Dongdaemun?

Total attendance rose 3.8 percent from 7,729 last year, the city said Thursday. Startup participation climbed 4.2 percent, from 875 companies in 2025 to 912 this year. The international contingent — 1,457 visitors from 67 countries — gave the festival its global pitch: Korean founders meeting overseas money without leaving home.

The venue itself carries weight. Dongdaemun Design Plaza, the spaceship-shaped landmark in central Seoul, has become the city's default stage for showing off its innovation credentials. For two days in September, it filled with founders, investors and corporate scouts.

Why did meetings double?

Organizers made two structural changes. They expanded dedicated meeting booths from 15 to 40, and they strengthened advance matchmaking between startups and investors before the festival opened. The result: 1,141 one-on-one meetings between startups, investors and major corporations, more than double the 541 held last year.

The growth in meeting volume outpaced attendance growth by a wide margin. Attendance rose under 4 percent; meetings rose more than 110 percent. That gap suggests the event shifted from a showcase toward a dealmaking floor — which is precisely what a city wants if it is chasing hub status rather than foot traffic.

What did the program cover?

The festival ran under the theme "AI Changes Everything. Now Try Everything." Artificial intelligence anchored the agenda, reflecting its growing influence across industries and the flood of AI-driven startups seeking capital worldwide.

Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor and global authority on AI, delivered the keynote address. He examined how AI is reshaping industries and creating new opportunities for startups — a framing that put Seoul's festival squarely inside the industry's biggest narrative.

More than 120 exhibition booths showcased emerging technologies and services:

• AI applications
• Beauty
• Entertainment
• Tourism

The spread signals how broadly the festival defined "startup" — deep tech alongside consumer brands, with AI as the connective thread.

How did Seoul sell itself to foreign investors?

The networking program leaned hard on Korean culture rather than hotel ballrooms. International investors and Korean startups met through unconventional settings featuring jjimjilbangs — Korean bathhouses — the historic Gwangjang Market and Seoul's Hangang Bus service along the river.

Two programs anchored the approach:

• Seoul Sweat Equity, pairing deal talk with the city's sauna culture
• Seoul Business Crawl, routing overseas investors and entrepreneurs through local neighborhoods while they explored potential partnerships

The strategy is deliberate. Rather than compete with every generic tech conference, Seoul is packaging dealmaking with an experience investors cannot get elsewhere.

"Try Everything is growing every year and establishing itself as a global startup event where startups and investors create new business opportunities through Korea's unique characteristics," said Kim Hyun-woo, head of Seoul's Economic Affairs Office.

Kim added that the city would continue supporting follow-up efforts to turn meetings initiated at the festival into actual investments and business partnerships. That follow-through is the real test. Meetings and "potential investment under review" are soft numbers; converted deals are the hard ones.

What happens next for Seoul's hub ambitions?

The city's stated plan is to keep working the pipeline after the lights go down at Dongdaemun. Officials said they will support efforts to transform festival connections into signed investments and business partnerships.

The trajectory gives them reason for patience. Every headline metric moved in the right direction this year — attendance up 3.8 percent, startups up 4.2 percent, potential investment up roughly 12 percent, meetings up more than twofold. If the 202.4 billion won now under review converts at a healthy rate, Seoul can point to a repeatable formula: culture-forward networking, aggressive matchmaking and an AI-first program. The next edition will show whether the formula holds.