이 기사는 2021년 12월 02일 08:05 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

A disappointing performance of shares in listed healthcare companies may weigh on Lunit’s plan to go public next year.

On November 26, the South Korean medical artificial intelligence startup filed an application to list on the country’s junior bourse Kosdaq. It plans to offer 1.49 million shares and NH Investment & Securities will act as lead underwriter.

As it remains unprofitable, Lunit will use an exception in the country’s listing rules that can be applied to startups with innovative technology. Lunit has already become eligible for this exception after receiving the highest ‘AA’ rating from two designated ratings organizations.

The latest private funding round, which was completed last month, valued the company at more than 500 billion won ($423.5 million), or 44,000 won per share. Several new foreign investors, including HealthQuest Capital and Casdin Capital, participated in the round.

Lunit also raised $26 million from US-based precision oncology company Guardant Health in July, in addition to its existing strategic partnerships with Japan's Fujifilm, GE Healthcare and Philips.

These strategic partnerships with foreign investors are expected to drive Lunit’s revenue growth in the coming years as the startup seeks to broaden its overseas customer base. It also holds clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration for its products Lunit Insight MMG and Lunit Insight CXR Triage.

Its revenue jumped from 200 million won in 2019 to 1.4 billion won in 2020. The startup aims to achieve profitability by 2023.

The IPO plan, however, comes amid a disappointing share performance of the country’s biotech firms. JLK, the first listed medical AI company in South Korea, had a market value of 87.6 billion won on Monday, compared with over 130 billion won at its stock market debut in December 2019. Vuno’s market value also decreased to 204 billion won from its IPO valuation of 220 billion won in February this year.

The weak performance of shares in comparable companies could hurt investor sentiment and have a negative impact on Lunit’s IPO price.

The largest shareholder in Lunit is its co-founder and executive chairman Anthony Paek with an 8% stake, down from 10.2% at the end of 2020 after additional fundraising.

A positive for the IPO is that new investors in the latest funding round agreed on a lock-up period of one year, which will help to reduce overhang concerns. Existing domestic investors also will not sell their shares for six months after the company's listing. (Reporting by Ah-kyoung Lee)