Last week, seven British semiconductor technology companies flew to Seoul for Semicon Korea 2024 – where we set up 51 one-to-one meetings with Korea’s biggest players in the industry as part of the UK-APAC Tech Growth Programme. And thanks to the jam-packed business matching schedule, several of these companies are now engaged in commercial negotiations with potential Korean customers and partners.
These companies include:
- Cambridge-based Paragraf, the first company in the world to mass produce graphene-based electronic devices using standard semiconductor processes
- Pragmatic, also from Cambridge, the developer of a flexible integrated circuit platform using thin-film semiconductors rather than silicon
- Oxford Instruments, which supplies a diverse range of scientific equipment
- QuInAs, a Lancaster University spin-out using compound semiconductors and quantum mechanics to produce a revolutionary universal memory which is ultra efficient in terms of power and speed.
The other participating companies – EpiValence, Moisture Control & Measurement (MCM) and the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) – also enjoyed constructive initial discussions, which they plan to build upon in the coming months.
South Korea is a highly attractive, rapidly growing market for UK tech scaleups offering innovative semiconductor technologies, with recently announced plans to invest more than £370 billion, in partnership with Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, to create the world’s largest semiconductor supercluster.
All seven companies were participating in the business development meetings as part of the UK-APAC Tech Growth Programme - the government-backed initiative we are running to help tech scaleups explore and secure commercial opportunities in the region - alongside a Department for Business & Trade mission to the SEMICON Korea global semiconductor industry event.
Dr Tom Wilson, Chief Commercial Officer at Paragraf, said the event “provided an excellent opportunity to meet a mix of investors, potential customers, partners and members of our supply chain.”
He added: “The meetings organised for us by the UK-APAC Tech Growth Programme occurred both on the SEMICON show floor and in dedicated meeting rooms. In addition to establishing new contacts and the dialogue in the meetings, there was time to walk the exhibition and arrange additional meetings that, in our case, helped further expand our footprint in this region."
James Ashforth-Pook, Founder and CEO of QuInAs, said: “The UK-APAC Tech Growth Programme team provided an invaluable and effective service in facilitating key strategic meetings with companies in the Korean memory sector.”
Jeremy Shaw, our COO and head of the UK-APAC Tech Growth Programme, said: “The thirst for UK technology in Korea was underlined by the response to the innovative technologies offered by all the UK companies we supported during SEMICON Korea. We look forward to helping many more UK tech scaleups realise their potential in the APAC region during 2024.”
The UK-APAC Tech Growth Programme provides support for UK firms to expand in 11 APAC markets: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. Our teams on the ground in APAC can identify participants’ business opportunities, provide market entry advice and help companies sell their products, forge partnerships and raise investment.
The programme – backed jointly by the Department for Business & Trade and Department for Science, Innovation & Technology initiative – is aimed at scaleups throughout the UK with significant international growth potential.
For more information and to apply to join the UK-APAC Tech Growth Programme, visit www.intralinkgroup.com/tgp
You can also contact our Programme Manager, Tom Miller, at tom.miller@intralinkgroup.com