c0mpiled-17: Seoul

📅 Monday, November 9, 2026 | 9:00AM – 7:00PM

📍 Coex Startup Branch (2F) | Seoul, South Korea

🍕 Lunch, Dinner, Drinks, and Snacks Provided | Free to attend!

🗣 The event runs in English. Live captions will be shown for Korean-language remarks during the opening ceremony.

🚀 Overview

Transpose Platform is excited to bring our c0mpiled hackathon series to Seoul for the first time, co-hosted with ASAN Nanum Foundation, Korea Venture Capital Association (KVCA), Korea Venture Investment Corp. (KVIC) and the Korea International Trade Association (KITA).

c0mpiled is a one-day, build-first hackathon: pick a topic from Y Combinator's Request for Startups, build on site, and get judged the way Silicon Valley judges early teams.

Since 2025 the series has run in San Francisco, Tokyo, and Osaka, with YC alumni founders as judges and mentors at every edition.

💡 Why Join?

Build next to like-minded individuals.

Get judged by YC founders. Judges look at how sharply you defined the problem and how directly your solution addresses it.

Win office hours with a YC General Partner Jon Xu.

The first-place team receives a one-on-one office hours session with a Y Combinator partner, plus KRW 3,000,000.

🧩 Challenge: YC Request For Startups - Fall 2026

AI for the Aging Population

The Best Time to Build in Crypto

New Operating System for the Physical World

AI Powered Consumer Products for a Billion People

Proving You're Human

Multiplayer AI

The Primer

Compute at Sea

Self-Maintaining APIs

🎁 Prizes:

1st Place: Office Hours with YC General Partner Jon Xu

+ KRW 3,000,000

2nd Place: KRW 2,000,000

3rd Place: KRW 1,000,000

The Winning team also receives YC application mentoring from Transpose Platform and the visiting YC alumni founders.

🧑‍⚖️ Judges:

James Tan — Partner, Transpose Platform; Creator and host of the c0mpiled series.

Daniel Park — Co-founder & CEO of Pickle (YC W25)

Sina Matian — Product Engineer @ Y Combinator

Peter Shin — Founder & CEO of Outsome | YC W20 Alumni

🙌 Who should apply?

Engineers, designers, and researchers building with AI, in Korea or visiting.

University and graduate students.

Aspiring founders and early-stage teams (pre-seed or seed) preparing for the US market.

You do not need a startup or a finished idea. You need to be able to ship in a day and present in English.

🤝 Team Format and Selection

Teams of up to 4, or solo. Apply as a team (each member registers and lists the team name) or as an individual.

About 150 participants (around 40 teams) will be selected from applications. Selection considers shipping history and English communication.

Approved participants receive event details and the venue guide by email.

💻 Rules and Submission

Build session: 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Existing models, APIs, and libraries are allowed; the product itself must be built during the event. Brainstorming beforehand is allowed.

Submission: a 90-second demo video, Github URL, plus a live demo to peers during the judging session (Optional).

We recommend using Loom or YouTube for demo video submissions.

Judging: what was built during the event, product quality, and the team's execution and product clarity.

⏲ Agenda

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Check-in and networking

10:00 AM - 3:00 PM: Build Session (5 Hours)

Lunch provided during the session

3:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Judging | Option demos | Awards

5:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Networking

Dinner and Drinks provided 🥂🥙

Schedule is subject to change.

📸 Past Editions

San Francisco, July 2026: two back-to-back editions with YC Startup School, 378 participants, 12 YC alumni companies judging and mentoring.

Tokyo, March 2026: Toranomon Hills Mori Tower, co-hosted with UTokyo IPC, seven judges including five YC alumni founders.

Osaka, July 2026: Ritsumeikan University OIC, 252 applicants and 183 participants, with YC President and CEO Garry Tan on site.

💙 Co-hosted By:

Transpose PlatformFounded in 2015, Transpose Platform is an early-stage venture platform backing frontier founders and the funds that accelerate them. First-check investors to top funds & founders.

ASAN Nanum FoundationKorea's leading founder-support foundation, operator of MARU and the Chung Ju-yung Startup Competition, with a Silicon Valley base at MARU SF.

Korea Venture Capital Association (KVCA)The association of Korea's venture capital industry, with 230+ member firms.

Korea Venture Investment Corp. (KVIC)Manager of the Korea Fund of Funds, the backbone of Korea's venture investment ecosystem, including its Global Fund program for overseas VCs.

Korea International Trade Association (KITA)Korea's trade promotion body and operator of COEX, including the COEX Startup Branch where the event takes place.

💌 Contact

Questions: [email protected]

Venue guide, judging criteria, and participant instructions will be sent to approved participants. This event may be photographed and recorded.