KWBIZ Innovation Showcase 2025: Women founders from Korea pitch for Singapore partnerships

Eight women-led startups from Korea stepped onto a Singapore stage on 31 October 2025 to court investors, distributors and corporate partners across cosmetics, fashion tech, health tech, pet tech and music. The KWBIZ Innovation Showcase, presented by the Korean Women Entrepreneurs Association (KWEA), Women Enterprise Supporting Centre (WESC), MICEBRIDGE, Kiaora Ventures and Epic Angels, ran from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM. The programme featured two pitching blocks and an extended networking session designed for deal-making and pilot scoping.

What the showcase set out to do

Framed as a cross-border bridge between Korea and Singapore, the showcase positioned Singapore as a launchpad for Southeast Asia: a regulated, logistics-ready hub with capital access and a diverse consumer base. Organisers emphasised practical outcomes, pilots with clear KPIs, distributor conversations and follow-up investor meetings, rather than a purely ceremonial demo day.

For media and investors, the format offered a compact scan of export-ready products backed by founders with sector expertise and go-to-market ambitions in the region.

Who organised it and why it matters

KWEA traces its roots to 1971 and officially launched in 1999 as Korea’s first statutory women’s economic organisation under Article 13 of the Act on Support for Women Enterprises. WESC provides information, education, training and counselling services to advance women’s entrepreneurship. MICEBRIDGE, a women-led events firm founded in 2023, specialises in domestic and international MICE programmes for public and private-sector clients.

Together with Kiaora Ventures (a Singapore-based early-stage investor and market-access consultancy) and Epic Angels (Asia Pacific’s largest female-only angel network), the partners foregrounded capital, market access and structured mentorship for female founders expanding into Southeast Asia.

The running order

The event opened with welcoming remarks and a congratulatory address, followed by two pitch sessions (four startups per block). Each segment gave investors and prospective partners a quick, comparable read on the value proposition, category fit, and expansion plans, leaving the final hour for targeted follow-ups in the networking area.

For readers evaluating potential engagements, that last hour was where specifics, pilot timelines, regulatory pathways, distribution footprints and commercial models were expected to be agreed in principle.

The eight to watch

• Stedis — Skin Hour Activation Lab (SHAL): a skincare line focused on restoration and recovery using vegan collagen RHC. Positioned for consumers seeking efficacious actives with gentler profiles, SHAL’s angle is post-stress skin repair.
• LikeNot — SISTIE: underwear engineered around 3D breast-shape data. The proposition blends comfort, support, and personalised fit, a data-driven take on an intimate category with strong repeat-purchase dynamics.
• DNClab: a one-stop research, development and manufacturing service for health functional foods, offering a turnkey path from concept to product for brands and formulators.
• KOELE: fashion bags fabricated from durable, high-quality Korean nylon, balancing sustainability with function for daily carry and travel.
• ZANGSUBIO: fermented herbal supplements for dogs and cats, designed to support immunity, reduce inflammation and improve skin health — riding the premium pet-care trend.
• SINGING BEETLE: a global K-pop idol development platform combining a proprietary training system with fan-community design, aimed at monetising talent pipelines and fandom engagement.
• VividHealth — ShotOut: a specialised app for GLP-1 weight-management programmes, built to track injections and adherence for patients and clinics navigating fast-evolving obesity-care protocols.
• Kartncomm: vegan tablet cleaners for tumblers and laundry using probiotic cleaning technology in eco-friendly solid form, a low-waste consumer-goods play with B2B co-branding potential.

Why Singapore corporates are paying attention

For enterprise buyers, retailers and healthcare operators, the appeal is twofold.

First, several propositions map directly to near-term demand: GLP-1 adherence tools for clinics and insurers; hygienic, low-waste cleaning formats for hospitality and corporate sustainability targets; and premium functional pet supplements for a growing owner base.

Second, the consumer-goods brands SHAL and KOELE, in particular, are primed for regional distribution through established retail and e-commerce channels, with localisation focused mainly on packaging, claims language, and payments. The presence of Epic Angels and Kiaora Ventures signalled that capital and market-access support can move in tandem with commercial partnerships, shrinking the gap between first pilot and scaled deployment.

The partner ecosystem around women founders

Epic Angels’ model, making angel investing accessible and education-driven for women across APAC, aligns with the showcase’s thesis: empower female leadership and broaden the early-stage funding base. Kiaora Ventures complements that with Southeast Asia market entry, connecting founders to distribution, compliance advisors and corporate buyers. Supporting communities such as Women in VSEA and Lean In Women in Tech adds another layer: networks for peer learning, mentorship and talent pipelines. In a market where execution speed often hinges on the right introductions, these partners reduce friction and uncertainty for first-market landings.

The takeaway

Beyond the founder stories, the KWBIZ Innovation Showcase 2025 served a clear B2B purpose: compress discovery, diligence and deal initiation into a single afternoon and do so with a cohort of women-led companies ready to engage the Singapore market. For investors and corporates, the value was practical: curated innovation, export-ready roadmaps and a partner bench that can help convert interest into signed pilots.

For the founders, it was a rare chance to meet capital, customers and collaborators in one room and to prove that the next wave of Korean innovation can scale across Southeast Asia from Singapore.