Actnova Secures 3.3 Billion KRW in Pre-Series A Funding

Actnova recently announced on the 7th that it successfully raised 3.3 billion KRW in a pre-Series A funding round.

Actnova Logo [Photo by Actnova]

Actnova is a company that developed 'Actverse,' a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering behavioral monitoring of non-clinical trial animal models using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Traditionally, non-clinical animal experiments related to neurological and psychiatric disorder treatments were conducted by researchers observing and evaluating symptoms over extended periods. Naturally, this process required significant time and cost investment, and quantification was difficult, leading to lower reliability. Actverse concretizes complex behaviors that were previously unquantifiable through machine learning technology and reduces the symptom diagnosis process that was manually observed and recorded by automating it.

This investment was led by Hana Ventures, with participation from Aventures and Fast Ventures. Actnova is a spin-off company from a research lab at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). In 2022, it secured 500 million KRW in seed investment from Kakao Ventures and was selected for the TIPS program last year. The recent funding round was driven by strong overseas interest in Actnova’s products from institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Broad Institute, as well as domestic large-scale corporate supply achievements and the launch of new SaaS products.

Daegun Kim, CEO of Actnova, said, “Despite the challenging investment environment, securing a considerable amount of funding was possible thanks to the technological capabilities of our products aimed at the global market and the competencies of our team members. Through this investment, we will provide an environment that allows us to focus more on our customers and products and strive to become another global startup within the domestic bio industry.”

Su-jin Jo, lead investment officer at Hana Ventures who led the investment, explained the reason for investing: “There is a growing need for objective data extraction and quantification through automation of animal behavior analysis processes. Although Actnova is still in the early stages of its business, it has secured meaningful references not only domestically but also from major overseas research institutes, pharmaceutical companies, and academia and industry.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.