LAS VEGAS, January 08 (AJP) - “Global-ready is not about translating slides into English,” one Silicon Valley investor said. “It is about proving demand, again and again.”
That message shaped discussions on Korean startups’ global expansion at the AJP Global Innovation Growth Summit 2026 (GIGS 2026), held on Jan. 7 (local time) at the Planet Hollywood Hotel in Las Vegas. Investors stressed that success in overseas markets is determined less by technology or vision than by execution, validation, and credibility built over time.
The discussion session brought together Silicon Valley investors to explain how global capital evaluates early-stage companies in practice. Tomasz Kolodziejczak, former head of innovation initiatives at Samsung Research, said Korea has no shortage of strong technical talent, but that advantage often weakens outside the domestic market.
Global investors, he noted, place greater weight on founders’ execution and decision-making than on sector or technology labels. Business models that work at home frequently need to be abandoned and rebuilt from scratch to fit overseas markets.
A sector-level perspective came from healthcare investor Cheryl Campos, former head of the Republic Venture Growth Partnership, who pointed to femtech and silver tech as areas where large populations remain underserved. The challenge, she suggested, is rarely technological. Instead, it lies in weak problem definition and a limited understanding of real customer needs.
That focus on fundamentals was reinforced by Mitchell Weinstock, a venture partner at HP Tech Ventures.
Being global-ready, he warned, is often misunderstood. Translating pitch materials into English does little on its own. What matters is repeated demand validation, built through sustained customer engagement and constant verification.
Investor-founder dynamics also emerged as a key theme. Campos cautioned against approaching venture capital firms from a position of weakness, arguing that startups should present opportunities rather than requests for funding. Overstated market claims or selective disclosure, participants agreed, undermine trust and damage long-term credibility.
Across the session, investors consistently framed global expansion not as a single leap driven by ambition, but as a cumulative process shaped by repetition, disciplined execution, and trust earned over time.
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