Korea's Standigm raises $11.5m Series B
Mirae Asset Capital has led a $11.5 million Series B round for Standigm, a Korean drug discovery and development company that uses artificial intelligence (AI).
Other contributors included Kakao Ventures, Atinum Investment, DSC Investment, LB Investment, Wonik Investment Partners, and Mirae Asset Venture Investment. The capital will be used in part to scale the company’s AI platforms. It brings total funding to date to $15 million.
Founded in 2015 by AI and systems biology technicians at Samsung Advanced institute of Technology, Standigm uses biomedical big data to develop new therapies for untreatable diseases and to find new uses of existing drugs.
The company has preclinical projects in Parkinson’s disease, autism, mitochondrial diseases, and a severe form of liver disease known as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). It claims its research team is composed 50% of PhDs with multi-disciplinary expertise in medical and data sciences.
“We have been very impressed with the progress Standigm has made over the past years in global drug discovery market,” Kijun Kim, vice president of Kakao Ventures, said in a statement. “The feasibility of Standigm AI is already acknowledged among the leading pharmaceutical companies.”
Korea’s nascent biotech space is considered significantly dependent on support from the government and local conglomerates including Samsung. Recent activity in this space includes a partnership between C-Bridge Capital and Samsung Bioepis focused on bridging the company into the Chinese market.
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