Philip Joo CEO of NDB

-Value Proposition, Systematizing maintenance workflows to maximize operational productivity for service providers

-Competitive Edge, High reliability built on CEO Philip Joo’s profound industry expertise and a robust database of over 5,000 maintenance records

[CEOs of Incubated Companies at KATECH Chungnam Cheonan–Asan InnoTown] NDB, Developing an Integrated Maintenance Platform for EV Charging Infrastructure
NDB is a specialized enterprise operating a dedicated maintenance platform for Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers. The company was founded in April 2025 by CEO Philip Joo.

“While at POSCO DX, I spearheaded the EV charging infrastructure business and was honored with the 2025 Innovation Award in recognition of my contributions”, said CEO Joo.

“As the business expanded, it was spun off into ChargEV Co., Ltd. I served as the CEO for four years, scaling the company into South Korea’s largest EV charging operator before successfully overseeing its acquisition by GS Energy. Afterward, I chose the path of a tech startup—a more challenging route than continuing as a executive in stable firm. My motivation for this venture stemmed from observing that EV charger maintenance remains undersystematized and trapped in a reactive response cycle. I founded NDB to solve this fundamental inefficiency.”

The company’s flagship product is an EV Charger Maintenance Platform. “Unlike simple electronic gadgets, EV chargers are critical infrastructure. On-site periodic inspections and repairs are complex, and documenting the results consumes significant resources”, Joo explained.

NDB has systematized the registration and management of tasks, allowing charging operators and maintenance firms to dramatically improve productivity. To lower the barrier to entry for customers, the platform is offered as a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model, utilizing a pay-per-use or subscription-based billing system.

From the planning stage, NDB ensured high reliability by combining CEO Joo's deep industry insights with a proprietary dataset of approximately 5,000 maintenance cases. The platform’s practicality was enhanced by analyzing the workflows of on-site technicians, operations managers, and executives. Furthermore, usability was maximized through collaboration with top-tier B2B UI/UX design specialists.

“The ultimate goal of the NDB platform is to shift the maintenance paradigm from reactive to proactive (predictive)”, stated Joo. “This transition will radically reduce management costs for maintenance firms, increase revenue for charging operators, and ultimately enhance service satisfaction for EV users. In our first phase, we are expanding data collection through our clients; in the second, we will utilize high-accuracy AI-driven inferences to make this vision a reality.”

The majority of NDB’s workforce consists of high-level engineers. “Half of our team comes from the POSCO Group, while the rest are AI specialists with master's or doctoral degrees. Even the founding members of Amber Road, our strategic partner, share roots at POSCO and POSCO DX.”

Regarding future plans, Joo expressed his ambition for an IPO (Initial Public Offering). “I believe it is the best way to ensure that shareholders and employees are rewarded proportionately for their contributions and the company's growth”, he noted.

Foundation: April 2025
Core Business: Maintenance platform for EV charging infrastructure
Achievements: May 2025 Selected for the Preliminary Startup Package (Korea University Sejong Campus), Jun 2025 Selected for the Innopolis Campus Project hosted by the Korea Automotive Technology Institute (KATECH), Dec 2025 Selected for the TIPS (Tech Incubator Program for Startup) program

reporter jinho lee
jinho2323@hankyung.com