As the healthcare industry rapidly reshapes around AI and data, open innovation—where large corporations and startups collaborate to validate technologies and commercialize them—is establishing itself as a new growth model. With an increasing number of programs linking proof-of-concept (PoC), data utilization, and global market entry—going beyond simple investment—cases of expanding growth opportunities for startups are on the rise. In particular, strategic partnerships between corporations and startups are becoming more active as the demand for collaboration grows across various fields, including medical care, fitness, and senior healthcare.
Global healthcare company InBody and deep tech accelerator BluePoint Partners held a meetup day for the ‘InBodyLike’ open innovation program, which aims to facilitate a total of 11 billion won in investment, and began collaborating with the six finalist startups.
Beyond investment to data and global expansion… Fostering healthcare startups
InBodyLike is an action-oriented acceleration program that embodies the meaning of “growing with InBody.” It focuses on jointly creating innovation in the healthcare industry by sharing InBody’s accumulated technology and infrastructure with pre- and early-stage startup teams.
Over 400 startups and prospective startup teams applied for this program. The exercise prescription and fitness sector accounted for the largest share of applications at 23%, followed by companies from various healthcare fields including medical care, chronic diseases and rehabilitation (18%), senior care, nutrition management, sleep, sports, and GLP-1-based obesity treatment.
The six teams finally selected after evaluation are Pursley, Nums AI, K-Bio Gateway, QMIT, SevenPointOne, and V-Body. They consist of startups possessing diverse technologies, including medical and chronic diseases, sports, senior healthcare, AI platforms, and 3D human body data analysis.
Over the next four months, the selected companies will conduct technology and business validation utilizing InBody’s technology, research infrastructure, and big data of over 200 million body composition records. BluePoint Partners will also provide dedicated mentoring and investment networking support, aiming to connect them to follow-up investments and commercialization.
InBody started as a technology company in its early stages and is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. It has grown into a global healthcare company that currently supplies products to over 110 countries and generates approximately 80% of its total revenue from overseas markets. Recently, it has been expanding its business scope as a data-driven healthcare solution company based on body composition big data.
Support for technology startups has also been consistently maintained. We have expanded our engagement with the startup ecosystem through various programs, including startup scholarships, the InBody Startup Academy, mentoring for aspiring entrepreneurs, support for CES participation, and the operation of hackathons. This collaboration with BluePoint Partners is also an extension of our efforts to build a new healthcare ecosystem together with promising technology companies.
As the healthcare industry evolves around data and AI, the open innovation model, in which large corporations and startups share technology and data to grow together, is expected to establish itself as a key pillar in enhancing the competitiveness of the domestic bio-healthcare ecosystem.
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