△ InsightFAI CEO Han Bokkyung (Professor of Department of Food and Biotechnology)

 

Korea University Sejong Campus announced that the faculty startup company, InsightFAI, has successfully secured seed investment from Korea University Holdings and has been selected for the TIPS (Tech Incubator Program for Startup Korea) program, organized by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.

 

InsightFAI, a company that specializes in discovering functional food ingredients and standardizing manufacturing techniques through artificial intelligence, is the only startup to have achieved seed investment and selection for TIPS after participating in the preliminary startup package support program in April this year.

 

TIPS is a program that selects technology-based startups with tech-intensive items that have the potential to lead the global market. These startups, recommended by private companies, receive R&D funding of up to 500 million won over two years. InsightFAI was selected for TIPS after passing the program’s review with a recommendation from Korea University Holdings.

 

The key factor behind this selection was InsightFAI's technology, which can drastically reduce the cost and time required for research on functional ingredient discovery, a critical aspect in obtaining certification from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in the functional food industry. Utilizing an extensive natural substance dataset and AI technology that predicts new functional properties, the company provides solutions that minimize trial and error in the discovery of new materials, increasing efficiency through an industrialization potential prediction model.

 

In particular, InsightFAI's proprietary 3D molecular docking AI technology predicts interactions between target proteins and functional materials. By selecting functional ingredients and creating a database called the Food Ingredient Bank. It enables significant cost reduction and efficiency improvements in corporate R&D. This technology, with its gut permeability learning algorithms and in vitro assay concentration prediction algorithms, greatly enhances the accuracy and verification speed of ingredient discovery.

 

InsightFAI is led by experts with over 20 years of experience in functional ingredient development and industrialization, including a CTO with successful experience in the global ingredient market and a bioinformatics specialist.

 

KU Sejong Student PR Team, KUS-ON

Translator: Seo Yujeong