[Mu & nonce & EO] Party with ABG: Asians Building Global 🇨🇳🇰🇷🇺🇸

​Join the fireside chat and party with visionary builders across Seoul, Shanghai & Silicon Valley!

(中文翻译在下方 / Chinese translation below)

​

​Introduction

​"Bruh just go to Silicon Valley for a while" — yup, still right if you're building horizontal AI.

"Nah bruh, stop cosplaying Silicon Valley, build the third path" — yup, you're right too! Especially if you're building in a vertical where Asia leads.

​Both can be true. But above all, it's up to the frontiers who take the risk to figure out which one applies to them. Who will be building the next unicorns, and what would their strategies be to leverage those worlds?

​2026 is perhaps the most pivotal year where the geopolitical and economic uncertainties prevail. We gathered with builders from Seoul, Shanghai, SF, and everywhere between — under one roof, around one table — to discuss the future of each industry the builders represent. Join our casual session sharing ideas, talk, drink, dance, build, all day all night. 🌏

​All builders are invited. Whether you're shipping in crypto, AI, robotics, hardware, entertainment, or anything in between — if you're building, this room is for you.

​🎤 Session 1 — Talks & Fireside @ A Town Hall (5:00 – 6:30 PM)

​15-minute pitch sessions from each speaker, followed by panel discussions. Open to anyone interested in the Korean startup ecosystem — the culture, the playbook, the VCs, and more. This is our cornerstone for deeper Korea–China and mu–nonce collabs.

​(#0) Opening remarks from Sun!!

​(#1) 🇺🇸 Capital Follows Story: How Asian Founders Break Through in SF

​Taeyong Kim · CEO of EO Studio · Co-GP of Patriot Fund

​EO has interviewed 1,000+ founders. Taeyong shares the ground reality of what makes an Asian founder legible in San Francisco — and why narrative travels before capital does. Who breaks through, who doesn't, and what the pattern actually looks like from inside the camera.

​❓ "If you had to bet on one Asian founder you've filmed to become the next billion-dollar story — and why? And the one who should've made it but didn't?"

​(#2) 🌏 Two Scenes, Two Hours Apart: A Korean VC's Notes from Between Seoul and China

​Jiyoo Gong · Investor, Kakao Ventures

​Kakao Ventures is the seed-stage arm of Kakao, Korea's largest super app, with more unicorns backed than any other Korean seed fund. Jiyoo has spent a decade between Seoul and China, and now covers IT services at KV. Seoul and Shanghai are two hours apart, yet Korean founders rarely see how far Chinese playbooks have evolved, and Chinese builders rarely see that Seoul has quietly become a frontier in how builders work with AI. She hopes the two scenes start trading notes more openly — and sooner than they think.

​❓ "What's the one thing about your own scene you wish the other side actually saw?"

​(#3) 🌊 So Different, Yet So Alike: Unlocking Value in China-Korea Supply-Demand Disparities
Cindy · Global Ecosystem Builder & B2B Business Development Expert

From Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai, to Seoul, Cindy is a super connector and global ecosystem builder. Fluent in Mandarin, English, Korean, and Cantonese, she possesses deep insights into the industrial ecosystems behind these cultures.Her connection with Korea began during a 2018 exchange at Korea University, where she witnessed the rapid growth of Korea's entertainment and consumer industries. Since then, she has scaled ecosystems from the ground up: connecting 150+ VCs and tech giants at Slush, driving a 500+ brand network for Sequoia-backed Vland Metaverse, and commanding tier-1 global client relations (Tesla, Xiaomi, Hyundai) at Techic.Leveraging this cross-border expertise, Cindy will share the untapped synergies between China and Korea through the lenses of VC, entertainment, music, and consumer brands.

❓“What specific opportunities do you see arising from the structural differences between China and Korea?”

​(#3) ⛺️ The New Builder Geography: Popup Villages, Hacker Houses in Korea

​Gen Lee· Network State builder (prev. nonce Foundation)

​Pay-it-forward culture used to be a Silicon Valley export. Now it's being reimported, mutated, and rebuilt in Korean popup villages and intentional communities. Gen breaks down the state of network states in the East — and why nonce is part of the same story.

​❓ "If you could spin up a 200-person hacker village anywhere in Asia for 6 months — where, who, and what's the one rule you'd enforce from day one?"


(#4) 🤖 Asian Influence on AI, Healthcare and Robotics
Seiok Kim · CTO, MVNT

​Did you know AI actually stands for Asian Intelligence? Seiok is a multi-disciplinary engineer and artist — Seoul National University Med School grad, 10 years in AI, and 10 years in breaking. His work sits at the intersection of AI, arts, healthcare, and robotics. Ten years after the AlphaGo shock, he reads the map differently: Chinese and Asian-American intelligence is quietly running the engine room of Big Tech. Seiok shares his personal journey of connecting these dots from inside the labs of Korea's and SF's leading engineers — and why he chose to develop the world's best dance AI among all.

​❓ "What dots have you made on your journey — and how are you going to connect them?"

(#5) 🎶 Next for K-Pop: Why Entertainment Stays Anchored in Asia
Joon Jung · CEO, MVNT (prev. nonce Foundation)

​MVNT builds the world's first dance generation AI model for the future of media and entertainment. Joon makes the case that entertainment is Asia's most asymmetric vertical — K-pop, C-pop, J-anime are IP engines SF can't replicate. AI doesn't eat this layer; rather scales it — and the startup to dominate this vertical wins the race. How are K-Pop giants confronting this wave and what are they focusing on? What are opportunities as startups?

​❓ "Will the first $10B AI-native entertainment company come from SF, Seoul, or Shanghai — and what would it actually look like?"

​🍱 Session 2 — nonce House @SH: Korean Potluck + Party (7:00 PM – all night)

​

​Talks end at A Town Hall. We ride over to nonce House @SH — the biggest house we could find nearby, parked right in Koreatown. The nonce fam is bringing the Seoul vibe to Shanghai for one night: a taste of what nonce is like in Seoul — a 100+ founders/builders crypto/startup town.

​🥘 Korean Potluck with everyone — Bring your own beer 🍺 and your laptops 💻. We'll have Kfood ready; bring a plate to add to the table. Sign-up is essential so we know how much to cook 🙏

​🔥 Founders Fireside with Taeyong Kim — Couch-side fireside on what actually separates the founders who break through from the ones who don't. No slides, real questions.

​🎧 Rave with DJ Joon — The fireside ends, the lights drop, the bass starts. Crazy Friday night, all night long. LFGGGG ABGGG

​🥂 Open Hacker House — Casual, loud, founder-dense. The kind of room where the next round, the next hire, or the next co-founder usually shows up between bites — or between drops.

​📍 Logistics

​📅 Friday, May 29

​🕒 5:00 PM – all night · Session 1 (Talks & Panel) @ A Town Hall — 5:00–6:30 PM · Session 2 (Potluck + Fireside + Rave) @ nonce House @SH — 7:00 PM onward

​🏠 nonce House @SH — 上海闵行区虹桥金斯花园34号102 (Koreatown, Hongqiao · ~20 min ride from AliCenter)

​Want to speak in Session 1? Want to add a vertical we're missing? DM the hosts.

​—

ABG：Asians Building Global (with nonce & EO)
亚洲创业者走向世界

​来一场跨越首尔、上海与硅谷的炉边对谈与派对。

​简介

​"去硅谷待一阵子吧" —— 如果你在做通用 AI,这话依然成立。 "别再 cosplay 硅谷,走第三条路" —— 如果你深耕亚洲有优势的垂直领域,这话也成立。

​两种都对。具体哪条路适合自己,只有亲自下场的人才知道。下一批独角兽会从哪里来?他们会怎么用好这两个世界?

​2026 年地缘与经济的不确定性交织,我们把来自首尔、上海、旧金山和世界各地的 builder 聚到同一个屋檐下,聊聊各自行业的未来。来一起聊天、喝酒、跳舞、写代码,从白天到深夜。

​欢迎所有 builder。 加密、AI、机器人、硬件、娱乐,以及之间的任何方向 —— 只要你在 build,这间屋子就是为你准备的。

​第一场 —— 演讲与炉边对谈 @ A Town Hall(17:00 – 18:30)

​每位嘉宾 15 分钟演讲,随后圆桌讨论。欢迎所有对韩国创业生态感兴趣的朋友。这是我们为韩中、mu–nonce 之间更深合作铺下的起点。

​(#1) 资本追着故事走:亚洲创业者如何在硅谷破局 Taeyong Kim · EO Studio CEO · Patriot Fund 联合 GP

EO 采访过 1000+ 位创业者。Taeyong 从镜头内侧分享:什么样的亚洲创业者能在旧金山被看懂,为什么叙事永远跑在资本前面。

​(#2) 两小时航程,两个世界:一位韩国 VC 在首尔与中国之间的笔记 Jiyoo Gong · Kakao Ventures 投资人

Kakao Ventures 是韩国最大超级 app Kakao 的种子基金,投出的独角兽数量在韩国种子基金中位列第一。Jiyoo 在首尔与中国之间穿梭了十年。两个圈子相距不过两小时,却很少互通笔记 —— 她觉得是时候了。

(#3) 如此不同，又如此相似——中韩产业供需结构差异下流动的商业机遇 Cindy· 国际生态构建者 & B2B业务拓展专家

游走在广州、香港、上海、首尔的Cindy是一个超级链接者和生态构建者。她会说中英韩粤，同时也对四种语言背后的产业生态有着敏感的洞察。Cindy与韩国的缘分开启于2018年，彼时她在高丽大学交换，直观地感受到了韩国的文娱、消费、演艺产业的发展速度。此后，Cindy 一直活跃在前沿产业，在国际科创大会Slush对接过150+知名VC、大企业创新部门和Startup，在红杉被投元宇宙Vland搭建起了500+品牌和高校的生态圈，在Techic管理特斯拉、小米、现代等国际品牌客户。丰富的行业积累让Cindy敏锐地捕捉到国家发展差异下涌现的机遇。Cindy将会从创投、文娱、演艺、音乐、消费等商业视角出发，分享她所看到的中韩链接机遇。

​(#4) 新的 builder 地理学:韩国的快闪村落与黑客之家 Gen · Network State builder

Pay-it-forward 曾是硅谷的文化输出,如今正在被反向引入韩国的快闪村落与社区。Gen 拆解东方网络国家运动的现状 —— 以及为什么 nonce 也是同一个故事的一部分。

(#5) 亚洲力量:AI、医疗与机器人 Seiok Kim · MVNT CTO

​你知道吗?AI 其实是 Asian Intelligence 的缩写。Seiok 是一位跨领域工程师与艺术家 —— 首尔大学医学院毕业,10 年 AI 经验,10 年 breaking 舞龄,专注于 AI、艺术、医疗与机器人的交叉点。AlphaGo 冲击十年后,他看到的地图是这样的:中国人和华裔正在悄悄掌舵 Big Tech 的引擎室。Seiok 将分享他在韩国与旧金山顶尖实验室里走过的路径 —— 以及为什么最终选择打造世界顶级的舞蹈 AI。

(#6) Next for K-Pop:为什么娱乐这件事始终锚定在亚洲 Joon Jung · MVNT 联合创始人

MVNT 打造了世界上第一个面向媒体与娱乐的舞蹈生成 AI 模型。Joon 的论点很直接:娱乐是亚洲最具结构性优势的赛道 —— K-pop、C-pop、J-anime 这些 IP 引擎,硅谷复制不了。AI 不会吞噬这一层,而是放大它。

​第二场 —— nonce House @SH:韩式百乐餐 + 派对(19:00 – 通宵)

​演讲结束后,我们从 A Town Hall 一起走到 nonce House @SH —— 附近能找到的最大一栋房子,就在韩国城。nonce 大家庭把首尔的氛围带到上海一晚 —— 让你尝一口 nonce 在首尔的真实模样:一个 100+ founder 和 builder 组成的加密/创业小镇。

​韩式百乐餐 —— 自带啤酒和电脑。我们准备好韩餐,你带一盘上桌。请务必报名,这样我们才知道要煮多少。

​与 Taeyong Kim 的创业者炉边对谈 —— 沙发边的对谈,聊聊到底是什么把"破圈的"和"没能破圈的"创业者真正区分开。没有 slides,只有真问题。

​DJ Joon 的 Rave 现场 —— 对谈结束,灯光压下,鼓点起来。疯狂的周五夜,通宵不停。

​Open House 氛围 —— 随性、热闹、创业者密度爆表。下一轮融资、下一位合伙人,往往就出现在两口菜、两声鼓点之间。

​活动信息

​5 月 29 日(周五) 17:00 – 通宵 第一场 @ A Town Hall —— 17:00–18:30 第二场 @ nonce House @SH —— 19:00 起

​nonce House @SH —— 上海闵行区虹桥金斯花园34号102 (虹桥韩国城 · 距 AliCenter 约 20 分钟车程)

​想在第一场分享?直接私信主办方。