Innocean teams up with SBVA to back promising innovators

Innocean announced Monday it has partnered with venture capital firm SBVA — formerly SoftBank Ventures — to launch "UP 2026," a growth platform bringing together more than 10 market-competitive innovative companies.

UP 2026 is designed as a joint platform to drive the growth of innovative companies alongside SBVA while also helping Innocean identify new opportunities and expand its future business foundation beyond its existing areas of operation.

The initiative is particularly significant in that it positions Innocean not merely as a marketing agency but as a collaborative partner that shares growth challenges with innovative companies and explores paths to business expansion.

Participating companies — all SBVA portfolio investments — include Blind, a workplace social platform; Kream, a limited-edition trading platform; Ohouse, a lifestyle platform; Queenit, a lifestyle platform targeting consumers in their 40s and 50s; Laundrygo, a mobile laundry service; Rael, a global women's wellness brand; and Gravity Labs, an AI-based healthcare platform, among others.

Innocean plans to draw on its capabilities in creative, data, AI and customer experience to help participating companies build growth strategies, and will also explore the possibility of future strategic partnerships and business cooperation.

The program consists of four sessions centered on AI- and data-driven growth strategies.

An opening session will lay out the purpose of the collaboration and the direction of the partnership. The main sessions will examine market shifts in the AI era, avenues for AI- and data-driven business expansion, and Innocean's growth models and related solutions applicable to each company's business model.

Senior executives and division heads from Innocean's key units — including the Business Experience division, the Strategy Solutions headquarters, the Global Business division, the Digital Experience headquarters and the Customer Experience headquarters — will participate to discuss each company's business direction, expansion potential and strategic cooperation priorities.

One-on-one meetings with each participating company will then follow, providing a concrete review of business model refinement and market expansion strategies.

Industry observers see the move as a concrete step toward realizing Innocean's "Beyond Agency" vision — supporting companies' growth strategies and business expansion rather than functioning solely as an advertising agency.

"This is a starting point for expanding strategic cooperation with innovative companies and exploring new growth opportunities," Innocean CEO Kim Jung-ah said. "Through our collaboration with SBVA, we expect each company to find tangible paths to business expansion and for concrete results to emerge along the way."

SBVA CEO Lee Jun-pyo said he hopes the program will provide meaningful insights to companies thinking about brand value and global growth strategies, and serve as an opportunity to explore new avenues for collaboration.