Capstone Partners adds 500 million won investment in Nemesis

Capstone Partners announced on the 23rd that it had invested an additional KRW 500 million in Nemesis, a semiconductor-based bio-diagnostics platform, bringing its total investment to KRW 1.5 billion.

Founded in 2017, Nemesis develops semiconductor-based bio-diagnostics platforms, including signal-processing chips for blood glucose monitors and chips for biosensors used in capsule endoscopes and diagnostic kits. Its compact designs use little power, handle a wide range of input signals, and excel at processing signals from multiple sensors.

Recently, the company has focused its R&D on a wearable-patch micro-needle CGM (continuous glucose monitoring) device, with strong growth potential among people with diabetes and in related industries. Nemesis’s micro-needle CGM uses needles just 1 mm long, enabling minimally invasive monitoring with minimal pain. The body-worn tag is also very thin, at about 4 mm or less, and readings can be managed on a smartphone—features expected to make daily life easier for people with diabetes.

Conventional self-monitoring of blood glucose (BGM) requires patients to draw and measure their own blood, causing pain and making continuous monitoring difficult. Earlier CGM products introduced to address these limitations have also been inconvenient for patients because of their long needles, bulky tags, and high cost.

“As the number of people with diabetes continues to rise, the CGM market is expected to grow as it addresses the shortcomings of conventional BGM,” said Choi Seong-jo, a team leader at Capstone Partners, which participated in the investment. “Nemesis has a micro-needle CGM solution that offers high precision and competitive pricing, and we expect it could eventually expand into a broader bio-diagnostics platform.”

“With this investment, we will step up R&D and manufacturing scale-up so we can bring to market our specialized bio-diagnostics solutions, including the continuous glucose monitor we are developing and wearable micro-needles,” said Nemesis CEO Wang Seong-ho. “By establishing an R&D center and strengthening our research capabilities, we aim to establish ourselves as a company that opens up and leads the converged biomedical market, combining South Korea’s technological strengths as an IT powerhouse with biotech, an emerging industry.”

Nemesis also raised a total of KRW 2.5 billion in a pre-Series A round this month from Capstone Partners, K-Ground, and UTC Investment. Its cumulative funding to date now stands at KRW 4 billion.