UNIST has announced that its student-led venture company, Pedaling has been selected for TIPS, the accelerator investment-driven tech incubator program for startups, and will receive KRW 500 million in funding from the Korean Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS). This is the first case where a UNIST-based student venture is being selected for TIPS.
Since attracting KRW 500 million investment from Naver Springcamp, along with the recent TIPS selection, Pedaling has received many compliments and positive feedback, as time went on. This is largely due to their successful launching of Class 101, a online learning platform for finding and starting a new hobby.
“With the recent adoption of 52-hour workweek system and the rise of one-person households, there has been a high demand for hobbies that promise indoor fun among people in their 20s and early 30s,” says Dai Sun Kong in the Graduate School of Technology and Innovation Management at UNIST, CEO of Pedaling. “And our online hobby learning platform has much appeal to those 2030 Generation”.
Class 101 is a robust platform for learning virtually any hobby. At Class 101, anyone can pick up a short or long-term online hobby class from an experienced and knowledgeable instructor. Unlike existing hobby learning platforms that are both online and offline, each course at Class 101 comes with an all-in-one kit upon registration.
At Class 101, you can find and learn any number of hobbies online or share your own experiences and expertise. There are various courses online in almost all categories, including leather crafting, home décor, barista training, yoga, drawing, etc. With the provided kit, you can take those courses on your smartphone or tablet.
Class 101 currently offers more than 50 classes that are taught by renowned lecturers who are experts in their fields. The periodic payment given to these instructors accumulating to KRW 1.4 billion, as of October 2018. This was accomplished within 7 months since its official launch in March.
Pedaling, founded by a group of highly-skilled UNIST students, is a private education tech startup aims at delivering quality education to anyone, anywhere, at any time.
Since its launch with the seed investment from UNISTRONG, the entrepreneurship program operated by Professor Han-Gyun Woo and Professor KwangWook Gang in the School of Business Administaration at UNIST, Pedaling has been singularly successful in attracting a substantial volumn of foreign investments. It has received $40,000 in seed funding from Strong Ventures and $10,000 in development funding from StudyMode of the United States.
Tech Incubator Program for Startups (TIPS) is a technology startup support program, initiated by the Small and Medium Business Administration (SMBA) to promote private investments on startups. TIPS offers startups with business incubation spaces through consortiums with universities and research institutes. The primary purpose of this program is to promote and support talent related to technological innovation where the startup could not grow their business due to a lack of funding or a fear of failure.
Class 101 offfers various courses in almost all categories, including leather crafting, home décor, barista training, yoga, drawing, etc.
