Legend Capital Portfolio Company: The Global-Leading AI Medical Imaging Company Lunit Goes Public Successfully

On July 21st, 2022, Lunit, a leading global AI-based cancer solutions provider invested by Legend Capital, was successfully listed on the KOSDAQ market.

Founded in 2013, Lunit successfully established itself as a world's top-notch artificial intelligence technology solution provider, mainly focusing on developing medical software to assist physicians in the realm of tumor diagnosis and treatment. Lunit’s flagship products are Lunit INSIGHT and Lunit SCOPE. Lunit INSIGHT is an AI-powered image screening solution, detecting and classifying chest abnormalities and breast cancer. Lunit SCOPE is an AI biomarker for immunotherapy, providing therapy response information that can critically affect treatment outcomes for cancer patients.

Legend Capital led Lunit’s series B investment round in June 2018 and continued to support Lunit’s global business expansion via three additional follow-on investments in 2019 and 2021. For the past 4 years, Lunit not only has produced world leading AI medical solutions, but also gained its commercial value achieving rapid topline growth. Lunit’s annual revenue grew over 460% in 2021 since its initial product commercialization in 2019. As of now, Lunit’s image diagnostic products have been certified by 42 countries/regions, including FDA, CE, and KFDA. The company will keep expanding into the global market through cooperation with international giants like GE Healthcare, Fujifilm, and Philips, etc. Legend Capital will continue to assist Lunit in finding untapped business opportunities in China by building up branding and introducing rich portfolio resources for cooperation.

Brandon Suh, CEO of Lunit, said: “Lunit's target market for cancer detection and diagnosis is worth 110 billion US dollars (of which the United States accounts for ~USD 45bn and the rest USD 65bn). Lunit's AI medical image analysis technology has significant advantages over traditional technology, and our accurate and efficient solutions have been appreciated by global medical institutions. Lunit’s ongoing global expansion can be attributed to the support from our existing partners, Legend Capital has been one of Lunit’s key partners in helping us grow our China business by introducing reliable local partners. Legend Capital has been and will continue to be Lunit’s strategic global partner going forward.”

"We like to invest in companies that have global vision, world-leading technology, and global expansion capabilities. We were very impressed with Lunit’s ambition to go global at our initial investment.” said Joon-Sung Park, Managing Director of Legend Capital. “With the world’s top-notch AI medical imaging technology, Lunit INSIGHT can significantly improve abnormalities detection and early-diagnosis rate, remarkably enhancing the efficiency of cancer diagnosis and treatment. Lunit has built a professional team with technology experts and medical professionals. The six co-founders are all graduates from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), the nation's first public, research-oriented science and engineering institution. With commitment to empower the medical industry by AI technology, Lunit has also hired 12 full-time doctors with in-depth understanding of medical service. It has provided AI healthcare services to approximately 600 medical institutions in over 40 countries, and has signed an exclusive business contract with Guardant Health, the world's largest liquid biopsy diagnostic company, to collaborate on cancer drug development.”

At present, "Lunit INSIGHT CXR Triage" and "Lunit INSIGHT MMG" have been certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by the end of 2021, and Lunit will continue to expand global market by obtaining Medical Device Single Audit Program (MDSAP) certification in US, Canada, Japan, Australia and Brazil, etc.

Legend Capital has invested heavily in companies that integrate technology and medical industry, and has kept betting on AI medical sectors. In addition to Lunit, Legend Capital has also invested in AI medical companies such as Xbiome, an AI microbiome drug development company; StoneWise, an AI drug R&D platform; Deepwise, an AI medical imaging company; BioMap, a biocomputing  platform; Deep Informatics ++, an AI medical pathology diagnosis company; and Unimed, an AI brain diagnosis and treatment platform.