PhyxUp closes in on pre-seed round with US advance

PhyxUp Health Inc., an early stage South Korean digital healthcare startup, will soon close a pre-seed funding round, said its founder and chief, who is also eyeing an over-tenfold jump in patient management program clients in the US in its first year.

“A few investors have agreed to invest in pre-seed funding, which was supposed to close in mid-June,” said Lim Sangwon, founder and chief executive officer of PhyxUp Health, in an interview with The Korea Economic Daily on Monday.

Rabbit Ventures and Digital Healthcare Partners have already signed contracts to chip in, while another undisclosed investor is in final talks with PhyxUp to sign a contract to invest, she said.

Founded in September 2023, PhyxUp has developed a remote monitoring program for physical therapists offered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) with an annual subscription fee of $4,800 per clinic.

It is a kind of remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM), which refers to the remote delivery of therapeutic patient care. RTM treatment is based on the direct supervision of eligible practitioners such as physical therapists during a virtual check-in. It is actively promoted in the US to better accommodate the rising demand for telerehabilitation.  

“When I worked as a physical therapist in the US for about nine years, I found out many patients failed to follow home exercise treatments prescribed on paper,” said Lim.

“Without (doing) home exercises, patient progress stagnates or their pain can even worsen, which is a heavy blow to therapists. To improve patient outcomes, I decided to develop PhyxUp software.”

MORE THAN RTM

PhyxUp, which will hit the US market in August, is a comprehensive patient management program, which offers physical therapists not only easy tracking and monitoring tools for patient outcomes but also simplified billing and reimbursement services.

Physical therapists can monitor and manage patient adherence and progress with automated pain and HEP data transfer and deal with billing on PhyxUp’s web-based monitoring dashboard, while their patients access home exercise programs on the PhyxUp app.

To motivate patients to exercise at home, PhyxUp produces original home exercise videos tailored to different injuries, Lim said.

“Our software is more than a simple RTM. PhyxUp can save physical therapists’ time (in patient management and billing) and improve patient outcomes with high-quality exercise videos,” said Lim.

The company plans to add more home exercise videos and upgrade its product with funds raised in the pre-seed round.

Especially, it plans to add gamification and in-app community features to improve patient engagement and progress further. PhyxUp hopes to roll out the upgraded second version with those features next summer, Lim said.

FIVE TO 66 IN A YEAR

After testing the minimum viable product (MVP) with physical therapy clinics in the US, the Korean digital healthcare startup has won the program orders from five clinics on the East Coast.

“Our goal is to service 66 clinics in California by 2025 and advance into all US states by 2027,” said Lim.

PhyxUp is also looking toward other markets such as Canada, Europe and Australia where digital healthcare is covered by insurance and actively promoted by the government.

The related market is set to grow in tandem with rising demand worldwide.

According to Precedence Research, the global telerehabilitation market is projected to hit $12.90 billion in 2032 from $3.58 billion in 2023.

The global telerehabilitation monitoring market is also forecast to grow to $4.7 billion from $1.4 billion over the same period, according to Data Bridge Market Research.

The remote monitoring market is still in its fledgling stage, meaning it has great growth potential, said Lim.

“I have witnessed progress in my business. The company has grown compared from three months ago and six months ago,” said Lim.

“I am confident about the quality of PhyxUp services, which stand out among engineer-developed products thanks to its value-added features thoughtfully picked based on the real experiences of physical therapists.”

Lim is not only a physical therapist but also an epidemiologist and a clinical data analyst. Some of her former physician colleagues in the US also work closely with her on the program as advisors. 

PhyxUp also partners with a medical research center in the US to improve its product, Lim said. 

Earlier this year, PhyxUp was among 20 Korean startups selected to benefit from Asan Voyager, a program designed to assist Korean startups entering the US by providing acceleration, coaching, community learning and long-term residency support.

Write to Sookyung Seo at skseo@hankyung.com

Jennifer Nicholson-Breen edited this article.