Blissvine Ventures , a deep-tech investment accelerator, discovered Luxbiome, an innovative microbiome research company, in July 2024 and successfully completed the investment attraction together with Heim Venture Investment, a scale-up accelerator. Blissvine Ventures, the TIPS operator, then recommended Luxbiome to Deep-tech TIPS, which was finally selected in September 2024.
LuxBiome is a startup that boasts excellent technology to the extent that it was selected as an A+ member by the Technology Guarantee Fund despite being a start-up in its second year since establishment. LuxBiome was founded by CEO Won-Yong Kim, the top microbiome expert in Korea, and was founded based on extensive research and commercialization experience in the field. CEO Won-Yong Kim has published 197 SCI-level papers through more than 35 years of prior research and a cumulative research budget of 38.5 billion won, and is conducting product development and commercialization jointly with large corporations such as Lotte Welfood, thereby externally verifying its technology and business feasibility.
LuxBiome’s vision is to develop “the world’s first innovative drug for controlling viral gastroenteritis microbiome,” and it has potential applications in the food, healthcare, and new drug fields. LuxBiome has a number of microbial and genome databases acquired through 30 years of government projects at a research lab at Chung-Ang University, and based on this, it is jointly developing a microbiome candidate substance high-speed discovery platform with the global IT company ORACLE.
In this investment, Blissvine Ventures highly evaluated Luxbiome's unique technological prowess and growth potential, while Heim Venture Investment focused on the possibility of expanding the business area through scale-up.
LuxBiome CEO Won-Yong Kim expressed his ambition, saying, “We will focus more on ensuring that our technology can bring about innovative changes to the bio industry, and through this investment and DeepTechTips, we plan to accelerate new drug development and entry into the global market.”
Meanwhile, Blissvine Ventures is an accelerator specializing in deep-tech startup investment, and is an investment firm led by CEO Hyung Kyung-jin, who has extensive experience in technology-related work such as investment, technology evaluation, and technology transfer. Established in 2021, Blissvine Ventures has a total of KRW 17 billion in accumulated investment, 63 invested companies, and an investment ratio of 82.9% in ultra-gap fields. Since becoming a TIPS operator in 2023, Blissvine Ventures has selected 5 deep-tech TIPS companies and 9 general TIPS companies by the end of 2024. Blissvine Ventures plans to continue to discover and focus on investing in ultra-gap technology companies with high global growth potential, and expects to be able to systematically support the growth of startups through cooperation with Heim Venture Investment.
Park Dae-seong, CEO of Haim Venture Investment, who worked together on this investment attraction, is a financial expert with diverse experience in private equity funds and mergers and acquisitions (M&A). He has experience in managing venture investments worth 30 billion won based on his experience in startup scale-up and investment attraction. Based on these achievements, Haim Venture Investment currently manages a blind fund worth about 2 billion won and invests in and manages 8 companies.
Blissvine Ventures and Heim Venture Investment announced that they will form an additional 1 billion won blind fund following this investment in Luxbiome and expand their investment in the deep tech sector. Through this, they plan to focus on supporting more innovative and future-oriented technology development and discovering next-generation deep tech companies.
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