AJU IB INVESTMENT Co., Ltd. is a venture capital and private equity arm of AJU Corporation Co., Ltd. It specializes in mezzanine, buyouts, corporate restructuring, and all stages of venture investments in small to medium sized start-up companies in South Korea. The firm considers investments in information technology including mobile service platforms, software, semiconductor, contents, biotechnology, life science, and environment sectors. For venture capital investments, it focuses on high technology sector and for private equity investments, the firm focuses on manufacturing sector. It typically invests in South Korea but also makes investments in other countries. The firm also considers investments in companies with main business in immune system platform technology, oncology drugs, and ophthalmic drugs. It also invests in information communication technology including Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, smart car, and advanced materials. The firm considers investments in companies that have been evaluated by technology credit bureaus or in companies with ratings of T5 and above, which is provided by technology credit bureaus. It prefers to invest between $0.87 million to $2.61 million for venture capital investments and $4.36 million to $17.45 million for private equity investments. AJU IB INVESTMENT Co., Ltd., formerly known as Kibo Technology Advancing Capital Co., was founded in 1974 and is based in Seoul, South Korea with an additional office in Boston, Massachusetts.

AJU IB Investment

Head of Venture Investment Division 1

Senior MD

Director

Principal

Executive Director

Trefoil Therapeutics raised $5200000 on 2017-01-05 in Series A

Trefoil is a biotechnology company that brings forward novel engineered FGF-1 compounds to treat endothelial cell-mediated diseases, including Fuchs dystrophy and other serious endothelial cell diseases. The eFGF-1 technology platform to develop first-in-class regenerative pharmacologic treatments for corneal diseases, which debilitating and cause a significant amount of preventable blindness throughout the world.

Trefoil focuses on a topical eye drop formulation of TTHX1114 for the treatment of ulcerative conditions on the front surface of the cornea which leads to corneal scarring and substantial loss of vision. The company's mission is to improve human health and create new therapies using drugs developed with protein engineering.

The management team at Trefoil has more than 100 years of pharmaceutical development and commercialization experience. As an early-stage development company, Trefoil has been recognized by the biopharmaceutical funding community through the CONNECT Springboard business plan program award and the Southeast Biotechnology Early Company Competition.

Trefoil Therapeutics

S-Alpha Therapeutics raised $8719174 on 2021-08-09 in Series A

S-Alpha Therapeutics Inc., a digital therapeutics company, researches and develops health applications and platform technologies that enable digital devices to treat different diseases. Its products include SAT-001, an ophthalmology related application for eye disease treatment; SAT-002, neurology application for treatment of nervous system disease; SAT-003, oncology application for recovery and treatment of cancer patients; and SAT-008, a public crisis application for overcoming social problems. Additionally, it also develops therapeutic devices. The company was founded in 2019 and is based in Seoul, South Korea.

S-Alpha Therapeutics Inc.

Happy Moonday raised $9250000 on 2021-12-16 in Series A

Happy Moonday Inc.

Raonsecure raised $14846929 on 2019-08-28 in Venture Round

Raonsecure Co., Ltd., an ICT security software company, provides various PC and mobile security solutions to financial institutions, government, and enterprises in South Korea. The company primarily offers TouchEn OnePass, a biometric authentication solution for payments, mobile banking, shopping, game networks, and fintech services. It also provides ICT security consulting services. The company was formerly known as Lumensoft Ltd. and changed its name to Raonsecure Co., Ltd. in October 2012. Raonsecure Co., Ltd. was founded in 1998 and is based in Seoul, South Korea.

Raonsecure

Woogene B&G raised $882299 on 2019-01-21 in Venture Round

WooGene B&G Co., Ltd. develops, manufactures, and markets products to animal health and livestock industry in South Korea and internationally. The company’s products include veterinary medicines, raw materials, and probiotic. It offers veterinary medicines for poultry, swine, bovine, horse, dog, cat, sheep, deer, and aquaculture markets; and vaccines for swine, poultry, canine, and cow markets. The company was formerly known as WooJin Co., Ltd. and changed its name to WooGene B&G Co., Ltd. in March 2001. WooGene B&G Co., Ltd. was founded in 1977 and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.

Woogene B&G

Trenbe raised $9126737 on 2020-07-16 in Series B

Trenbe Inc. sells apparel, bags, shoes, and accessories online for men and women. The company was incorporated in 2016 and is based in Seoul, South Korea.

Trenbe

PeopleBio raised $33588491 on 2021-06-21 in Post-IPO Equity

PeopleBio, Inc., a biotech company, engages in developing diagnostics for protein misfolding diseases worldwide. Its Multimer Detection System technology uses capturing antibodies and epitope-overlapping detection antibodies for the detection of oligomers or multimers from monomers in protein-misfolding diseases. The company has strategic collaborations with Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Etablissement Français du Sang, ADNI Private Partner Scientific Board, Eisai Co., Ltd., Macrogen Corp., ZheJiang Dian Diagnostics Co., Ltd., and LabGenomics, Inc. PeopleBio, Inc. was founded in 2002 and is based in Seongnam, South Korea.

PeopleBio

SodaGift raised $4845335 on 2021-08-19 in Venture Round

SodaGift

Gencurix raised $24363572 on 2021-06-01 in Venture Round

Gencurix Inc. develops molecular diagnostic products in South Korea. Its products include GenesWell BCT, a prognosis diagnostic kit for breast cancer; GenesWell ddEGFR Mutation Test, a prognostic test for lung cancer; GenesWell CDx EGFR Mutation Test for companion diagnostics in lung cancer; and GenesWell ddEGFR Mutation Test to detect mutation site in non-small cell lung cancer samples. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.

Gencurix

Vendys raised $5770135 on 2018-07-17 in Series B

Vendys (주식회사 벤디스) is a Korean provider of mobile display solutions for the staff welfare sector. It enables the development of mobile food stamps, canteen meal coupons, promotions, discount coupons, and more. Its solutions also facilitate staff management and sales sourcing services.

Vendys was established in January 2014 in Gyeonggi-do, Korea.

Vendys

Amicogen raised $5641077 on 2013-11-10 in Post-IPO Equity

Amicogen, Inc. operates as an industrial biotechnology company in South Korea and internationally. The company offers specialty enzymes, including CX for pharmaceutical, food, chemical, and energy industries. It also provides N-acetylglucosamine for skin moisturizing and joint health; pinitol/D-chiro-inositol; collagen peptide for skin; collagen tri- peptide for intestinal absorption rate; Chitosan Oligosaccharides; and lactic acid bacteria. In addition, the company offers finished products comprising K-nutra, a B2C health care brand; and Key clean, a disinfectant for food equipment. Further, it provides protein purification resins. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Jinju, South Korea.

Amicogen

Onuii raised $11834269 on 2021-11-18 in Series A

A mathematical problem solving application for middle and high school students.

Onuii

Triple raised an undisclosed amount on 2018-05-17 in Series A

Triple Corp. operates a cloud based travel platform. Its product triple, is an application which is designed to help the user in real time location sharing. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Seongnam, South Korea.

Triple Corp.

kukka raised $2469339 on 2020-04-13 in Series A

kukka, Inc. sells flowers for office space, atelier, showrooms, and events through retail stores and online. Its products include corporate event support flowers, promotional flower box, customer care flowers, and floral decorations. The company was incorporated in 2014 and is based in Seoul, South Korea.

kukka

Plexense raised $2650000 on 2017-06-26 in Venture Round

Plexense, Inc.

12cm raised $4475839 on 2015-10-07 in Series C

12cm operates echoss, a cloud O2O service platform that provides offline to mobile connection services. The company also offers echoss stamp products.

12cm’s platform also includes a service mobile plugin, commerce service, and coupon service components. In addition, its echoss platform is applied and extended to O2O service, including membership, promotion, mobile certification, commerce, and utility. It is based in Bundangdong, Kyonggi-do.

12cm

5minlab raised $5373260 on 2020-07-01 in Series A

5minlab (5민랩) develops mobile and Flash games. Its products include Project Jump Goox, which is a fairy-tale based game.

5minlab was established on Septemeber 23, 2013. It is based in Seoul, Korea.

5minLab

Dano raised $1851810 on 2016-01-05 in Series A

Dano (다노) is a Korea-based company that develops diet apps for the health and fitness sector.

Dano’s Diet App is a journal-based app that enables users to stay focused and monitor their daily progress. The app offers many useful tools to help users stay committed to their diet programs. 

Dano also released Diet Cover, a lock-screen photo app that enables users to have a photo of their role model, in order to remind themselves about their diet during the course of the day. This app enables users to eat healthily and be mindful of their diet at any given moment. 

Dano was established in July 2013.

Dano

GI Innovation raised $143210000 on 2021-06-15 in Series C

GI Innovation is a South Korean bio-venture company, integrating basic science and translational innovation in developing biologics for patients around the world. GI Innovation’s strategic focus is on immuno-oncology and inflammation/immunology diseases. GI Innovation has established GI-SMART platform technology that is designed to accelerate the development of biologics through the efficient optimization of multi-targeting fusion protein therapeutics with high quality and high productivity.

GI Innovation

Newploy raised $2517872 on 2018-06-22 in Series B

Newploy

People & Technology raised $2664509 on 2021-05-04 in Series A

People & Technology

Macaron M raised $2421346 on 2020-03-17 in Series A

Macaron M

S-Alpha Therapeutics raised $2743210 on 2020-12-16 in Seed Round

Apellis Pharmaceuticals raised $47000000 on 2016-02-12 in Series D

Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is an early stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel therapeutics and drug delivery technologies to address chronic inflammatory diseases, with an initial emphasis on diseases of the lungs such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Apellis emerged from a successful transaction between Potentia Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Alcon Research, Ltd in October 2009 in which Alcon licensed the ocular applications of Potentia’s family of complement inhibitors.  Apellis holds the worldwide exclusive rights to the extra-ocular uses of these compounds. In May 2010, with start-up capital raised from private investors, Apellis commenced full-scale operations.

Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Willog raised an undisclosed amount on 2022-01-13 in Series A

willog

Watcha raised $12000000 on 2018-03-30 in Series C

WATCHA
- Launched in AUG 2012, it quickly became Korea’s favorite movie review app
- Its core competency lies in personalized recommendation technology - once users rate movie, WATCHA predicts how they will like movies they haven’t yet seen
- Now provides the widest and most accurate movie, TV show and book reviews 
- Launched in Japan in 2015

WATCHA PLAY
- Launched in JAN 2016
- Subscription VOD service for movie and TV series available on multiple devices including Web, iOS/Android mobile and tablet, Samsung/LG Smart TV, Google Chromecast, Android TV
- Provides extremely accurate personalized content recommendation, powered by WATCHA - 75% of content consumed based on recommendations

Comment by Apple, App Store Editor Team 
“Thanks to its large volume of reliable review data collected from users, WATCHA PLAY can recommend contents that perfectly satisfy my taste. Please don’t waste your time in choosing what to watch. Trust WATCHA PLAY and Enjoy tonight”

Watcha

Fresh Easy raised $34696119 on 2019-08-31 in Series C

Fresh Easy

CORELINESOFT raised $10253080 on 2021-09-10 in Series C

CORELINESOFT

CORELINESOFT raised an undisclosed amount on 2020-07-23 in Series B

Tryus & Company raised an undisclosed amount on 2018-03-14 in Series A

Tryus & Company

bHaptics raised $1794048 on 2019-01-01 in Series A

bHaptics

Dot Mill raised $2536375 on 2021-10-16 in Seed Round

Dot Mill

Honey Biz raised $10306385 on 2016-06-06 in Series B

Honey Biz

Wavebridge raised $6170597 on 2021-07-01 in Series A

WaveBridge

Tibit Communications raised $25000000 on 2019-04-01 in Series B

TiBiT Communications offers a disruptive technology that will fundamentally change the way broadband access is deployed in the Service Provider markets worldwide (Cable MSO, Telco and Wireless).  They make small, low powered solutions that can be easily placed anywhere in the network to enable multi-Gigabit connectivity for low end cost effective switching equipment in a Software Defined Network.

Tibit Communications

Apellis Pharmaceuticals raised $33000000 on 2014-12-02 in Series C

Albam raised $2500000 on 2018-06-09 in Series A

Albam : A mobile based HR Solution that is available for both Managers(Admins) and Staffs in App both IOS & Android.

The average HR manager spends 45 minutes a day to calculate time attendance & payroll. With Albam, time is reduced by 70% to only 15 minutes. Albam help enterprises in simplifying and automating their time attendance system to payroll solution. Our easy to use and simple Cloud based Human Resource solution helps companies in reducing the high costs that are often associated in the investment of Time Attendance system which includes the purchase of expensive fingerprint machines and training of IT Personnels. 

With Albam, employees can clock in and clock out directly right away from their smartphone, clock in and clock out has never been this easier with Albam.

Albam

Aileron Therapeutics raised $33000000 on 2014-10-29 in Series E

Aileron Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company that develops a class of drugs called Stapled Peptides. Stapled Peptides represent the first general solution for modulating intracellular protein-protein interactions that are critical control points to nearly all functions of a cell.

It was founded in 2005 and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Aileron Therapeutics, Inc.

Fangtek raised $12000000 on 2006-06-08 in Series C

Shanghai Fangtek Electronics Co., Ltd. designs, develops, and markets analog and mixed-signal power management integrated circuits for communication, computing, and consumer markets. Its products include audio power amplifiers, LED drivers, SIM card controllers, analog switches, reset integrated circuits, charger protection products, and voltage regulators. The company serves audio, lighting, and supply voltage regulation applications; and mobile phone, MP3/4, GPS, mini sound box, and MID applications. Shanghai Fangtek Electronics Co., Ltd. was founded in 2003 and is based in Shanghai, China with an additional office in Shenzhen, China.

Fangtek

FamePick raised $4600000 on 2019-11-06 in Series A

FamePick Inc. is a subscription based internet platform that caters to advertising and marketing industry. Its platform allows customers to find, secure and launch celebrity driven marketing campaigns on social media. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Sunnyvale, California.

FamePick

SparkPlus raised $25232772 on 2019-12-11 in Series B

Sparkplus designs and manages real estate contracts, interior design, construction, and furniture arrangements for offices. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Seoul, South Korea.

SparkPlus

Trefoil Therapeutics raised $28000000 on 2019-07-16 in Series A

Innopharmascreen raised $1777418 on 2019-02-28 in Series A

Innopharmascreen

OliX Pharmaceuticals raised $37508699 on 2020-12-01 in Post-IPO Equity

OliX is a clinical stage biotechnology company, based on their own proprietary 
RNA interference (RNAi) technology regulating the expression of disease-causing genes.

OliX Pharmaceuticals

Blind raised $6000000 on 2017-05-15 in Series B

Teamblind, Inc. develops a community app and operates an online community platform that connects verified professionals to discuss what matters most. Its platform enables users to communicate with users in private company channels and various industries; and share advice, provide feedback, improve company culture, and discover relevant career information. The company was founded in 2013 and is based in Irvine, California with additional offices in Seoul, South Korea and San Francisco, California.

Teamblind

Bellicum Pharmaceuticals raised $55000000 on 2014-08-27 in Series C

Bellicum Pharmaceuticals is a clinical stage company developing next generation therapeutic vaccines and other immunotherapeutic approaches for the treatment of cancer and chronic infectious diseases. Bellicum's novel approach is to utilize precise knowledge of the signaling pathways that regulate the immune response to target specific factors that can influence the potency and duration of this response.

Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Seer raised $17500000 on 2019-07-18 in Series C

Seer is a developer of a life sciences and health data platform intended to facilitate early, pre-symptomatic detection of chronic life-threatening diseases. The company's platform captures and translates molecular insights from the proteome with improved accuracy and speed, enabling healthcare professionals to detect cancer and neurological diseases, drive earlier treatment and improve patient outcomes.

Seer

Laundrygo raised $13975665 on 2020-06-04 in Series B

Laundrygo is a on-demand laundry service.

Laundrygo

12cm raised $4400000 on 2015-10-08 in Series A

Kezar Life Sciences raised $50000000 on 2017-07-25 in Series B

Kezar Life Sciences company focused on the discovery and development of drugs targeting protein homeostasis for autoimmune disorders. In parallel with this work, Christopher and Kezar co-founder Jack Taunton, Ph.D. collaborated on several research projects involving protein secretion. This collaboration inspired a belief in the strong synergies between protein degradation and protein secretion, two fertile areas for drug discovery with platform potential.

Kezar Life Sciences

Remember raised $5400000 on 2015-09-08 in Venture Round

Remember is the number one business card management application in Korea that secretary inputs directly when you take a business card.

Remember

Clearside Biomedical raised $20000000 on 2015-12-03 in Series C

Clearside Biomedical, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, develops and delivers treatment that restore and preserve vision for people with serious eye diseases. Its preclinical products include CLS-AX, an axitinib for suprachoroidal injection. It also develops XIPERE, a triamcinolone acetonide suprachoroidal injectable suspension for the treatment of macular edema associated with uveitis, diabetic macular edema, and macular edema associated with retinal vein occlusion. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Clearside Biomedical

Kymera Therapeutics raised $65000000 on 2018-11-13 in Series B

Kymera Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on discovering and developing novel small molecule therapeutics that selectively degrade disease-causing proteins by harnessing the body’s own natural protein degradation system. It engages in developing IRAK4 program for the treatment of immunology-inflammation diseases, including hidradenitis suppurativa, atopic dermatitis, and rheumatoid arthritis; IRAKIMiD program to treat MYD88-mutated diffuse large B cell lymphoma; and STAT3 program for the treatment of hematologic malignancies and solid tumors, as well as autoimmune diseases. The company was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Kymera Therapeutics

Molecular Templates raised $3500000 on 2014-09-15 in Series C

Molecular Templates Inc. (MTI) is a biopharmaceutical company with a novel protein platform for the development of new therapeutics against cancer. The company has a lead compound for melanoma that is expected to enter into clinical trials in the next two years and is developing additional compounds against a variety of other cancers.

Molecular Templates, Inc.

Kezar Life Sciences raised $28300000 on 2015-06-16 in Series A

Seer raised $55000000 on 2019-12-17 in Series D