Kim Hyun-joon, founder and former CEO of VUNO, partnered with Professor Park Sang-joon of the Department of Ophthalmology at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital to launch CLOP, an AI-based eye disease management startup.

The startup has also received seed investment.

CLOP said it recently drew seed investment from FuturePlay and Shinhan Capital. The startup aims to manage eye diseases and prevent blindness using artificial intelligence.

“The number of people with diabetes and suspected diabetics in Korea totals more than 12 million. Of these, less than 30 percent are regularly tested, leaving an estimated 8 million people in a state of immediate need for testing. In particular, many patients in the early stages of the disease, which are the most treatable, do not recognize their symptoms and miss timely testing and treatment,” it said.

CLOP will develop a platform to automate the referral and follow-up of patients who need additional eye tests in internal medicine, such as those with diabetes, and enable fast and convenient testing. the company said, adding it would also develop AI-based analytics.

Explaining reasons for its investment, FuturePlay CEO Kwon Oh-hyeong said, “CLOP’s AI-powered healthcare service is precisely tailored to the needs of doctors and patients, and we believe it will soon become a unique platform in the ophthalmology space.”

Kwon added that CLOP is the best team in experience and capabilities to identify critical clinical problems in digital healthcare and to solve them entirely within the healthcare/medical space.

“It's an inspiring challenge to solve real-world problems as an ophthalmologist that I've seen and operated on for many years,” CLOP’s co-CEO Park said. “This funding will allow us to accelerate our product and service development and launch a service that will delight patients and doctors this year."