Lunit, a leading medical AI provider, announced it has raised $61 million in its Pre-IPO fundraising round ahead of the company’s planned public offering on the South Korean stock market (KOSDAQ) early next year. A number of new investors have joined the round including leading US healthcare investors HealthQuest Capital, Casdin Capital, and American Cancer Society BrightEdge, as well as Asia-based global healthcare investors Tybourne Capital Management, and NSG Ventures.
HealthQuest Capital invested $20 million of the total funding amount. HealthQuest Capital is a leading healthcare growth equity firm with funding from a number of major US healthcare systems and has extensive experience partnering with global pharmaceutical companies including Roche-Genentech, Merck, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer. It also has a broad network of healthcare payers such as Kaiser Permanente, Humana, and United Healthcare. Lunit is the HealthQuest Capital’s first investment in Asia.
“At HealthQuest, we’re highly interested in AI advancement and its application to complex diagnostic procedures to improve accuracy and reduce complexity,” said Garheng Kong, Managing Partner at HealthQuest Capital. “Lunit stands out as best-in-class for its state-of-the-art solutions (which uses a paired modality approach) across multiple products, and has significant initial commercial traction around the world. We’re excited to partner with Lunit through this exciting stage of growth.”
Casdin Capital, a New York based life science focused investment firm, has invested in well over 100 biotechnology companies including Loxo Oncology, Spark Therapeutics, Foundation Medicine, and Flatiron Health, which were recent acquisition targets for major pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly and Roche.
Tybourne Capital Management is a global growth investor in public and private equity markets, focusing on investments in the Healthcare, Consumer, Financials and TMT sectors. The firm was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Hong Kong with an office in San Francisco. Tybourne manages long duration capital on behalf of prominent non-profits, university endowments, sovereigns, corporate pensions and family offices. Notable investments in healthcare include Zentalis Pharmaceuticals/Zentera Therapeutics, WuXi Biologics, Tigermed, and SK Biopharmaceuticals.