Hyundai Motor Group spins off 3 in-house start-ups

Hyundai Motor Company announced on Sunday that it has spun off its three in-house start-ups with promising business ideas.

The newly spun-off start-ups are Difon, AutoL, and Datamond. They developed and are preparing to commercialize a smart window film that allows users to control the amount of sunlight, a high-resolution lidar for self-driving, and an easy and convenient point service led by customers, respectively. Hyundai Motor Group will support them based on the belief that they can be used for not only cars but in other areas.

Difon’s smart window film was developed as the company’s unique technology and can be used in not only cars, but also for buildings. It is easy to install and cost-competitive, while providing the benefit of blocking harmful UV rays and saving energy. AutoL’s lidar is more compact and capable of recognizing the surrounding environment more accurately, which makes it suitable for cars. Its performance will be tested in harsh conditions before being supplied to OEMs. Datamond’s customer-participating point platform “Point Monster” shortens the franchise registration process for affiliation to less than a minute upon a user’s suggestion, which will be helpful to acquiring new customers.

Hyundai Motor Group has selected 58 teams so far since 2000 through its in-house start-up development program and spun off 25 of them, including 10 start-ups split up last year.


Hyung-Seok Seo skytree08@donga.com