[혁신·강소 기업을 가다] The beginning of proper health habits, Philize

Shin In-sik, CEO of Philrise, developed the service with the mission of extending people’s healthy lifespans through health tech. He expressed his aspiration that Philrise would be a good starting point when trying to make good changes. CEO Shin is being interviewed by World Biz & Sports World. Reporter Kim Du-hong kimdh@sportsworldi.com

‘Oh-Wan (I finished working out today)’ and ‘God-Saeng (God+Life)’ have become trends that run through the MZ generation. The neighborhood swimming pool is so popular that there is a long waiting list for registration, and the number of people who enjoy golf and tennis has also increased significantly. There has also been a change in food intake. Instead of ‘Mala-Tang-Hulu’, people have started eating a ‘slow-aging’ diet.

The hyper-personalized healthcare platform ‘Philize’ has become a must-have app among the MZ generation who are just starting out. Philize provides a total of 12 health management services, including nutritional supplements, diet, and blood sugar, based on personal health record (PHP) data analysis and hyper-personalized artificial intelligence (AI) technology. You can register the nutritional supplement information you usually take and receive an alarm every hour, and you can also check the ranking of nutritional supplements that people often take. Total healthcare is possible by registering your diet, exercise, and blood sugar records.

Shin In-sik, CEO of Philrise, who met with World Biz & Sports World, said, “Philrise’s mission is to extend healthy lifespan with hyper-personalized health tech tailored to each individual’s characteristics, allowing people to live their lives doing what they want to do.”

◆Comprehensive care for nutritional supplements, diet, water, exercise, and blood sugar

CEO Shin In-sik founded the hotel and restaurant reservation service ‘Daily Hotel’ in 2013 and successfully sold it to travel platform company ‘Yanolja’ in September 2019, 6 years later. After running nonstop for over 7 years, CEO Shin took a year off, and coincidentally, COVID-19 broke out that year. It was a time when he naturally became interested in health management. He thought it would be nice to easily record diet, nutritional supplements, and activity information by applying information and communication technology (IT). This is where the business idea started.

As it happened, there was no ‘unicorn’ in the market for the health management platform that CEO Shin had envisioned. CEO Shin once again put his head together with Vice President Yoon Jeong-won, with whom he had worked together since the early days of Daily Hotel’s launch, to concretize the service concept. He recruited Director Chae Hyo-cheol, founder of the second-hand trading platform ‘Beongae Market’, as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), completing the ‘Avengers’ team.

Philize started out as a nutritional supplement and has since expanded its services to include diet management, water intake tracking, walking management, and more recently blood sugar management. Through this, it guides users’ lifestyle habits according to their needs.

CEO Shin said, “The purpose of using Filize varies from person to person, such as to consistently take nutritional supplements, to lose weight or gain muscle through diet management, or to manage high blood pressure or diabetes,” and “the age range of users is also wide.”

[혁신·강소 기업을 가다] The beginning of proper health habits, Philize - News Directory 3

◆Adding AI to massive data

Philize currently provides information on over 30,000 nutritional supplements. The secret to its massive database is painstaking effort. CEO Shin recalled, “The Philize team initially registered over 10,000 databases, starting with brands with high domestic sales,” and “We have been steadily adding databases since then.”

When building the database, Philize not only entered the names of supplements and ingredients, but also unified the units of ingredients. This was to help users calculate the ingredients more easily. According to CEO Shin, Philize users take an average of 4 to 5 supplements. Users can also receive customized analysis to determine whether the amount is too little or too much.

Diet management services are also differentiated. Philize manages not only simple calorie calculations but also micronutrients. Users with high blood pressure can check how much sodium they consumed per day and receive feedback on what is lacking and what is good. You can also check weekly and monthly reports. In June, the ‘AI Camera’ function was officially introduced. When you take a picture of food, it tells you what kind of food it is and what its nutritional composition is. The accuracy is over 95%.

Philize can also check body composition data measured by InBody and is linked to Samsung and Apple health data. It can also retrieve health checkup data from the past 10 years.

There is also a ‘Daily Mission’ program that allows you to earn points by simply recording your lifestyle habits in the app. The points you earn can be used freely within the Philize store, making it ideal for motivation. In addition, it also provides health columns written by nutritionists and pharmacists, as well as a 1:1 Q&A function.

◆Blood sugar management system ‘Sugar Care’

There is a term called ‘blood sugar spike’. It refers to the phenomenon in which blood sugar levels rise immediately after eating food. It can have fatal effects on people with diabetes. It is also a phenomenon that people who are overweight and in the pre-diabetic stage should be wary of. CEO Shin emphasized, “So far, 16 million meals have been registered on Philize, and 2 million meals are registered on a monthly basis,” and “However, diet is primary, and it is more important to know what changes diet causes in the body.”

In particular, blood sugar is a biomarker that changes most immediately. Accordingly, Philize officially launched the personalized blood sugar management system ‘Sugar Care’ in early December last year. It is a paid membership program sold within the Philize app.

Users can check their blood sugar changes 24 hours a day by attaching a sticker-type continuous blood sugar measurement sensor to their arm without having to draw blood. This blood sugar data is combined with personal health data and activity records such as diet and exercise to provide personalized feedback analyzed by Philize’s patented AI technology. CEO Shin opened the Philize app and showed his Sugar Care usage screen, which showed his blood sugar level rising from an average of 91 to 179 after eating a snack.

CEO Shin said, “Blood sugar level changes can help you adjust your diet or create the will to move your body more,” and added, “Sugar Care has been growing every month so far, and users are highly satisfied with it, giving it a score of 4.9 out of 5.”

◆Attracting a cumulative investment of 15 billion won

In 2021, the first year of its establishment, Philize attracted 3 billion won in seed investment. The seed investment was led by Strong Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital (VC), and was joined by Fast Ventures, NextTrans, Primer, and Milestone Venture Partners.

After that, it successfully attracted 12 billion won in Series A investment in August of last year, reaching a total investment of 15 billion won. Samsung Next, KB Investment, and KDB Industrial Bank newly participated in the Series A investment, and seed investors Strong Ventures, Primer, and Next Trans additionally participated.

Philize plans to continue its mission to extend people’s ‘healthy lifespan’ with healthtech technology. Healthy lifespan means growing old in a healthy state, rather than prolonging life with medical technology.

CEO Shin said, “It is natural that the more developed a country becomes, the more interest in health increases, and in our country, a culture of taking interest in and taking care of one’s body is being formed.” He added, “We will make Philize a service that serves as a ‘starting point’ when trying to make positive changes.”

Reporter Lee Hwa-yeon hylee@segye.com

[혁신·강소 기업을 가다] The beginning of proper health habits, Philize

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