Mercedes-Benz Korea announced Thursday that it invited nine promising Korean startups to its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, earlier this month as part of its efforts to foster global growth opportunities for innovative companies.

The five-day program, held in collaboration with the Korea University Research and Business Foundation, Sejong, ran from Nov. 11 to Nov. 15.

The selected startups toured Mercedes-Benz’s Sindelfingen plant and the Mercedes-Benz Museum to learn about the automaker’s innovative technologies. They also presented and discussed their proof-of-concept demonstrations to Mercedes-Benz executives, exploring opportunities for future partnerships.

A total of nine startups from the fields of electric vehicle batteries and charging, hardware components, and software-defined vehicles participated in the program in Germany: POEN, WiPowerOne, InnotionTech, Korea Simulator, Scalar Data, TMEV Net, Faraday, Awesomenics and Perseus.

WiPowerOne was a participant in this year’s Startup Autobahn Korea, having joined the trip as part of its 100-day accelerator program.

Since its launch in 2022, Startup Autobahn Korea has supported 63 startups in Korea, providing mentoring and global networking opportunities to help companies expand overseas.

“We are excited to be able to offer insights throughout the networking and PoC opportunities to more promising startups that can help them expand globally,” said Mathias Vaitl, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Korea.

“We hope this visit to Germany will inspire more Korean startups to create their own success stories as they expand into global markets.”