ITCEN Group to Accelerate Global Expansion by Identifying Domestic Startups With Draper Startup House

ITCEN Global and four other companies, including ITCEN Global, will step up strategic collaboration and investment to find new growth engines and new business opportunities through open innovation Web3/RWA, AX (AI Transformation), physical AI, cloud, security, and more

ITCEN Global, a comprehensive IT services company, is teaming up with Draper Startup House to kick off its push into global markets through strategic collaboration with promising domestic startups and direct investment.

ITCEN Global, with participation from its major subsidiaries, will hold the open innovation program “2026 ITCEN x DRAPER Open Innovation” with the Draper Startup House Korea Center to discover and nurture promising startups across various fields such as AI, Web3, and physical AI, it said on the 8th. The company said it plans to keep expanding its investment and co-growth strategies for startups in a range of areas.

This program is a group-level integrated open innovation initiative in which five key subsidiaries, including ITCEN Global, will participate: ▲ ITCEN Entec ▲ ITCEN CTS ▲ ITCEN Cloit ▲ ITCEN PNES ▲ Creador. Each subsidiary is designed to generate business synergies with the startups selected based on its own business capabilities and infrastructure, while linking those efforts to joint commercialization and overseas expansion.

The ITCEN Group plans to expand beyond its existing business structure centered on system integration (SI), widening its business portfolio into in-house solutions, SaaS, and AI-based services. Through this open innovation effort, the group aims to rapidly apply external innovative technologies to its business and secure momentum for global expansion.

The call for participating companies runs through June 24. Startups and technology companies in relevant fields are the primary target, regardless of years in operation. In addition to those fields, companies that have innovative technologies that can be collaborated on with the ITCEN Group may apply without restrictions by field.

The group plans to select around 10 companies. For the selected companies, a variety of follow-on investment opportunities will be offered, including custom investment reviews tailored to each company and club-deal investment together with Draper Startup House. The group will also provide business support opportunities for overseas market entry by running a custom follow-on acceleration program based on company demand and leveraging the Draper Global Venture Network.

Starting with this program, the ITCEN Group plans to further upgrade its open innovation framework at the group level and gradually expand PoC (proof-of-concept) projects connected to each subsidiary’s strategic business. Through this, the group said it will accelerate both co-growth with the domestic startup ecosystem and the construction of a global business expansion and new business portfolio at the same time.

A spokesperson for ITCEN Global said, “As a comprehensive IT-focused group representing the Republic of Korea, we will pursue strategic investment in promising startups and growth support at the same time.” “We will focus on producing tangible results in strengthening the global competitiveness of domestic technology startups and in the ITCEN Group’s push into global markets, both.”

Lee Se-yong, representative of the Draper Startup House Korea Center, said, “One of the essential conditions for domestic startups to succeed in overseas expansion is securing successful business execution cases with domestic companies.” “This is not a program that merely provides investment to companies or leaves them satisfied with PoC experience. It is the open innovation approach that our country’s startups need most—an approach that lets them validate real business viability and move quickly into overseas markets.” “Draper’s global venture network will support this in a structured manner,” he said.