Hyundai Motor spins off 4 in-house startups in mobility, AI, data

Hyundai Motor Group has spun off four new in-house startups, including MOBINN with autonomous driving technology and APLAYS with AI-powered music curating technology, as part of its efforts to unearth innovation through collaboration with new ideas beyond the boundaries of the auto industry.

MOBINN, APLAYZ, SURFF Company and CaREDIT are now stand-alone companies after developing and commercializing their technologies through Hyundai Motor Group’s in-house startup program ZERO1NE Company Builder, the South Korean auto giant announced on Thursday.

MOBINN develops self-driving delivery robots for last-mile delivery service. Its delivery robot can move up and down steps with rubber-made wheels and deliver packages for door-to-door service with its LiDAR sensors and cameras. It can move alone at night.

APLAYZ is a music curation app developer. The app suggests and plays music based on the surrounding environment, time and weather conditions in real-time.

SURFF Company operates a platform that enables logistics companies to find available cargo space for shipping in real-time, easing cargo disruption.  

CaREDIT develops a program that predicts the lifetime of auto parts and their future maintenance costs, using analysis data on vehicle maintenance history.

ZERO1NE BEHIND HYUNDAI’S INNOVATION DRIVE

Hyundai Motor Group, which owns Korea’s biggest automaker Hyundai Motor Co. and No. 2 Kia Corp., has so far fostered 76 internal startups through its in-house startup incubation program ZERO1NE Company Builder and spun off 30 as independent companies.

The company launched its in-house startup incubation program called Venture Plaza in 2000 and then changed its name to ZERO1NE Company Builder in 2021 to invite developers from various sectors to tap into new ideas.  

A startup picked by the company to join the internal startup program is given up to 300 million won ($227,152.27) in development funds from the company and one year to develop and commercialize its technology or service before the company makes a final decision on whether to let it stand alone.

The developers of the carved-out startups are also allowed to return to Hyundai Motor Group within three years of their separation.

ZERO1NE Company Builder is a part of Hyundai Motor Group’s open innovation program called ZERO1NE Creative Talent Platform, which was introduced to the world in detail at 2023 CES held in Las Vegas in January this year.

The Korean auto company hopes to have access to innovative ideas of creators beyond its own boundaries through the ZERO1NE platform, the company said.

Under the program, the company runs an outside startup accelerator program called ZERO1NE Accelerator and a platform dubbed ZERO1NE Playground for creators including artists, designers, architects, entrepreneurs and scientists.

“Many of the disruptive breakthroughs that are shaping the transformation of mobility are coming from startups operating outside the automotive industry,” Hwang Yun-seong, vice president and head of Open Innovation Execution Group at Hyundai Motor Group, said in January when he introduced the company’s new open innovation platform.  

Write to Hyung-Kyu Kim at khk@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.