As we welcome 2026, we step into a new year filled with renewed possibility.
The global landscape continues to shift at remarkable speed: technologies evolve, markets realign, and societies face challenges that demand bold, collaborative solutions.

Amid this momentum, one truth stands out: innovation has never been more essential, nor more global. Cross‑border expansion is no longer just a pathway for business growth but also a means to ensure progress is shared, communities are strengthened, and new systems take shape for a better future.

In 2026, we reaffirm our mission to help innovators navigate cross-border expansion complexity with clarity, agility, and purpose. Whether it’s crafting and executing culturally resonant market strategies, forging commercial engagements, or building strategic partnerships, we remain dedicated to enabling companies to spread their innovative products, solutions or services internationally and create net‑positive impact wherever they operate.

Together, let’s build a brighter and more inclusive future.
Happy New Year 2026.
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Bruno & Brian
encognize G.K. Cross-Border Innovation Partners

As 2025 draws to a close, we’re taking a moment to reflect on how far we’ve advanced the frontier of cross‑border innovation together.

Even amid a global VUCA landscape, APAC continued to stand out as a compelling destination for innovators pursuing regional or global growth. This year, we had the privilege of supporting 35 pioneering companies from 8 European and Asian countries, through both government‑backed programs and tailored fractional support, as they navigated their expansion journeys. Japan and ASEAN once again emerged as top destinations for ambitious founders looking to scale.

Two‑thirds of the companies we engaged with this year were focused on building an initial understanding of their target markets. We supported them through strategic market entry preparation, combining contextual and industry‑specific insights delivery, GTM assumption and hypothesis development, and organization‑level stakeholder mapping, with on‑the‑ground exploration and validation through targeted meetings.

Another 11 companies had already pre‑validated their target markets and partnered with us to de‑risk and accelerate their entry. Through deeper, higher‑intensity engagements with several of them, we helped deliver tangible outcomes within 3 to 6 months, ranging from identifying business, technological, and commercial partners to finding validation projects.

We extend our sincere thanks to the many startups, scale‑ups, corporations, and government organizations that entrusted us throughout 2025 to support their international expansion and innovation journeys.

We look forward to continuing to push the boundaries of global innovation together in 2026.

Bruno & Brian
encognize G.K. Cross-Border Innovation Partners

As we enter 2025, let me first thank all our business partners: entrepreneurs, startups, scale-ups, Small & Medium Businesses, corporations, innovation service providers and government entities for riding the innovation and impact journey with us in 2024.
More than ever, we are committed to delivering more value to all of you throughout 2025.

2024 Q4 has not been short of activities, guiding and advising many of you directly and in programmatic approaches in defining and achieving your innovation objectives and expansion goals.
Non-exhaustively, here are some activities to which we contributed to in 2024 Q4:

• providing market entry guidance to 15 startups focused on accessibility and technology solutions addressing the needs of impaired, disabled and differently-abled individuals as part of the 2024 Korea-Singapore IR & Business Meeting organized by DEBC (Disabled Enterprise Business Center),
• delivering strategic guidance and feedback to 7 early-stage Austrian FinTech startups seeking to expand into Singapore and the broader Southeast Asia as part of the GIN Austria Go Singapore 2024 program powered by Austria Wirtschafts Service and supported by Advantage Austria, 
• providing practical recommendations for Japan market entry to 12 Asia-HQ'd startups preparing their visit to Fukuoka as part of a Plug and Play Japan initiative,
• advising on Southeast Asia market entry strategies to 15 growth-stage Korean startups participating in SWITCH 2024 as part of KSC IR Day organized by KOSME (Korea SME and Startups Agency),
• acting as selection jury and final jury members for during HACK OSAKA 2024 for both JETRO Global Startup Pitch and GET IN THE RING pitch competition,
• acting as a trusted-advisor and providing actionable recommendations on specific business growth and impact enablement matters to a focused group of Asia-based women-founded ClimateTech startups selected for the UN Women - CLIMATE TECH ACCELERATOR, a program implemented with the support of SHE LOVES TECH and funded by the Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

Of course, our encognize team will not stop here...
This year, we will continue to support entrepreneurs across the globe, focusing primarily on cross border expansion support and impact enablement support through our 「XBORDR」 and 「hyumpact ventures」 service lines respectively.

Watch out this space for more announcements soon!

Bruno & Brian
encognize G.K., Cross Border Innovation Partners