Nine South Korean startups have pitched at DETO 2026 in Seoul to secure a place in the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 2027.
These companies focus on deep tech sectors including healthcare, fintech, energy, semiconductors and artificial intelligence. All nine seek to enter the United States market as part of wider international expansion strategies.
Voinosis won the competition. The other eight startups are listed below in alphabetical order.
Voinosis
The company builds an artificial intelligence tool that analyses speech patterns such as pitch, pauses, rhythm and response times to detect changes linked to brain health. Each voice check takes less than five minutes.
Its technology has been tested in Greek, Japanese and English. The product does not require separate training for each language. A clinical study involving 146 participants showed the startup achieved 88% accuracy in screening for potential cognitive issues.
Voinosis targets hospitals, senior living facilities, insurers and individual consumers. It also plans to link voice checks with cognitive training, assessments and treatment provided by healthcare professionals.
Grace Shin founded the startup. She spent more than 25 years as an otologic surgeon. The company is currently raising a Series A round and has already secured a South Korean pharmaceutical company as a strategic investor.
Awesome Lab
Awesome Lab, based in Seoul, makes ThermoFlux. This heating system uses water electrolysis and ionization to generate heat. The system can manage heat production for buildings, water supply and industrial processes.
The company claims its technology can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.
For its international expansion, Awesome Lab takes a different approach in each market. In the United States, it plans to supply core OEM modules and work with boiler, water heater and HVAC companies on product development.
Crosshub
Crosshub helps travelers and international visitors verify their identities and set up payment methods abroad. Its platform, IDBlock, combines identity verification and payment services using Self-Sovereign Identity and zero-knowledge proof.
The company claims its platform helps users prove their identity across borders without sharing unnecessary personal information. Crosshub is also integrating this technology with payment systems to improve access to financial services for travelers.
DeepFusion AI
DeepFusion AI has developed a 4D radar-based imaging system with additional sensors for autonomous mobility, robotaxi, maritime surveillance and defense applications. The system combines RF sensors with radar and lidar to detect objects, movement or distance without a direct line of sight.
All sensors are packed into a single, customizable unit.
EFLOW
EFLOW develops special motors that can produce more torque, or rotational force, while taking up less space for use in robots, drones, satellites and other mobility applications. The startup also develops actuators that control how robotic joints move.
Otition Medical
Otition Medical makes two medical devices. One specialises in measuring body temperature, while another can capture ear canal images and analyse the eardrum. The company claims its AI was trained on about 55,000 images of eardrums. The device has received medical certification in South Korea.
Riibotics
Riibotics claims it can deploy robots into warehouses within a day. The startup wants to reduce deployment costs for warehouses by streamlining setup. This includes infrastructure setup, warehouse mapping, system integration through custom middleware, task programming and safety checks.
Ternell
Ternell is a semiconductor startup based in Ulsan. It is developing a new type of memory to help AI chips use less power.
Unlike conventional two-state memory, Ternell’s T-SRAM system adds a third state for more efficient data storage. Founded in 2019 by KyungRok Kim, a former Samsung Electronics engineer, Ternell reports that tests with 28-nanometer chips showed a 33% to 102% increase in memory capacity per area. Tests also showed a 55% to 71% reduction in energy needed to access data, compared with conventional SRAM.
Testbank
Testbank is a Korean edtech startup developing Solve. This app converts printed study materials, such as workbooks and test-prep books, into interactive digital versions.
The startup uses AI to identify question and answer spaces in publishers’ PDF files while preserving the original layout. Solve lets users write answers directly on the page and be graded automatically.
