Seoul Metropolitan Government will hold the “2026 Seoul Beauty Week Business Meet-up Pitching Competition” at Dongdaemun Design Plaza on August 25.
Companies from the cosmetics sector, as well as beauty tech including beauty devices, wellness, inner beauty, and platform-based lifestyle businesses, are eligible to participate. Startups nationwide, from prospective founders to companies founded within the past seven years, may apply.
The competition will proceed in stages. After document screening, nine teams will be selected to advance to the final round, held at Seoul Beauty Week. All finalists will receive one-on-one mentoring with professional investment evaluators.
The prize pool is also substantial, totaling 20 million won. The grand prize winner will receive 10 million won, the runner-up 5 million won, three excellence awards will each receive 1 million won, and four encouragement awards will each receive 500,000 won. The grand prize, runner-up, and excellence award winners will also receive the Seoul Metropolitan Mayor’s Award.
Finalists will also be supported with meet-ups with investors and connections to corporate partnership opportunities. The goal is to create practical opportunities that lead to investment attraction, distribution network expansion, and global market entry. The city is building a structure in which Seoul helps early-stage startups open doors to the investment and distribution markets that are otherwise difficult to access on their own.
Results are already visible in the numbers. Last year’s pitching competition drew 59 promising companies. Even after the event ended, the award winners continued follow-up meetings with major distributors and venture capital firms, leading to investment and collaboration.
There are clear examples of this. BarunBio, which won the grand prize for its self-generating microelectrical stimulation-based skincare solution, earned recognition for its technology and has received the CES Innovation Award for three consecutive years. Entertake, which won an excellence award for its home wireless self hair-dyeing and care device, was selected for the Ministry of SMEs and Startups’ TIPS program, securing up to 800 million won in support. These cases show that the competition was not merely a one-time awards event but a stepping stone for growth.
K-beauty is expanding beyond cosmetics into beauty devices, beauty tech, and wellness. Seoul’s decision to include startups across the broader lifestyle sector, rather than limiting the event to cosmetics, reflects this trend. The city aims to identify the next generation of growth engines in advance.
“We will focus on business matching so that the innovative companies discovered through this program become attractive partners to domestic and overseas investors,” said Lee Su-yeon, head of Seoul’s Economic Policy Office. “We hope startups with ideas and technologies capable of challenging the global market will participate.”
Companies wishing to participate may apply through the Seoul Beauty Week organizing office from May 26 through June 26. The key question is how many of the companies discovered through this program will actually go on to receive investment and expand overseas after the competition. Whether the stage becomes a starting point for growth will depend on the depth of those connections.