As marriage and childbirth are increasingly delayed, the number of people experiencing infertility in Korea has continued to rise year after year. More recently, even among couples who do get married, the share of DINK couples (double income, no kids—working couples who intentionally choose not to have children) has grown, to the point that the proportion of people affected by infertility is said to exceed the population who go on to give birth. Even among couples who do plan pregnancy and childbirth, infertility has become a widely shared issue, with as many as one in seven couples experiencing it.

For couples facing infertility, the common options are “fertility treatments” such as IUI (artificial insemination) and IVF. But even with treatment, IUI is known to have a success rate of roughly 12%–18%, and IVF around 20%–30%. Success rates also tend to drop sharply with maternal age, particularly after 35.

While some government support may be available, the cost of each treatment cycle can still be substantial. And even if a couple proceeds with treatment despite all of this, the discomfort and pain the woman experiences in the process remains something she must bear.

To address these difficulties, improving success rates is critical. If success rates rise, the stress a woman endures from repeated cycles can be reduced dramatically. In this context, a startup developing AI-driven infertility solutions—aimed at identifying fertilized embryos and improving pregnancy outcomes—has drawn attention.

Led by CEO Hyejun Lee, a former OB-GYN, Kai Health has quickly emerged as a promising healthcare startup since its founding in October 2021. After winning the D.CAMP–Seoul National University College of Medicine startup competition in December of that year, it went on to be selected in May for an AI fetus/embryo dataset-building initiative by NIA (the National Information Society Agency), and in August for the TIPS program, among other milestones. Kai Health has also presented its technology at infertility conferences in the U.S. and Europe, and recently gained recognition from Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), further strengthening its foothold for global expansion.

Why an OB-GYN chose entrepreneurship to tackle infertility

Hyejun Lee graduated from Seoul National University College of Medicine and built extensive experience as a fertility and reproductive endocrinology specialist in obstetrics and gynecology. But after feeling the limits of solving infertility solely through clinical care, she stepped away from practicing medicine after 2014. Instead, she chose to pursue an MBA at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She later gained business experience in the U.S. healthcare industry—working on strategy and AI at Change Healthcare, and serving as APAC Director at Syapse. She founded Kai Health in 2021.

Meeting at Orange Planet on Teheran-ro in Seoul’s Yeoksam-dong, Lee shared why she decided to start the company: “Solving infertility in the clinic is meaningful too, but I wanted to create systemic change.”

“After leaving clinical work, completing my MBA, and then handling sales, marketing, and customer management at a global company’s Korea office, my desire to build something with my own hands only grew. The fact that my father, my younger sibling, my husband, and my father-in-law are all entrepreneurs also influenced me. I only started thinking seriously about a business idea after I resigned. Then I remembered the frustration I felt during my time as a doctor. There’s still so much about infertility that we can’t explain. Even if a cycle fails, you often can’t point to a single cause. I began to think that if we could overcome those limits with data and science, we could help people who are suffering.”

Lee expects that while fewer couples may choose to have children, the proportion of couples experiencing infertility will keep rising—largely because maternal age continues to increase and egg quality declines with age. To address that, Kai Health focused on developing an AI solution that helps select the best embryos.

AI selects embryos to raise IVF success rates

Among infertility treatments, IVF is often chosen after IUI fails. In IVF, eggs and sperm are collected, fertilized outside the body, embryos are cultured for 2–6 days, and then transferred into the uterus. While IVF has a higher success rate than IUI, it can be physically demanding, and the number of attempts may be limited—so for many couples it can feel like a “last chance.”

In this process, Kai Health’s AI solution has drawn attention for improving the accuracy of embryo selection—work that previously depended heavily on embryologists’ experience. According to Lee, that can help clinics improve outcomes, while reducing the burden on infertility couples.

“Historically, infertility treatment has involved a lot of manual, experience-based work where subjective judgment plays a big role. Embryo selection, too, often depended on embryologists looking through a microscope and making a call based on experience. Kai Health’s AI solution addresses those limitations using ‘AI vision’ technology. We trained the AI on images of embryos that resulted in pregnancy and those that didn’t. With this algorithm, we can raise the probability that embryologists select a good embryo—currently around 37%—by about 10 percentage points. And if you look at the AI’s own accuracy, it can reach as high as 65%.”

Beyond selecting good embryos, Kai Health is also developing technology for making better embryos and supporting how embryos are cultured. The company chose to focus first on embryo selection because it is the most direct lever for improving pregnancy outcomes. The solution, officially launched in February of that year, was undergoing validation in collaboration with four hospitals through MOUs, while the company simultaneously pursued clinical trials with partners such as Seoul National University Bundang Hospital and progressed toward medical device certification.

Even as Lee explains the company’s achievements and plans with ease, she acknowledged the challenges of first-time entrepreneurship. The word she used was “anxiety.”

“I worried most about whether people truly need this solution—whether the problem is as serious as I believe it is. I’m usually optimistic, and before this I wasn’t the type to fear the future or worry that things won’t work out (laughs). I knew startups aren’t easy, but I didn’t realize it would feel this anxious. Still, from winning the D.CAMP–SNU College of Medicine competition to everything since, I think we’ve made it this far thanks to a lot of people’s support. Looking back, it was as rewarding as it was difficult.”

Building a platform to support pregnancy and childbirth end-to-end through diverse data

Now about a year and a half in, Kai Health’s progress as an early-stage startup is notable—but Lee sees it as only the beginning. Her long-term vision is “a healthcare platform for building healthy families.” That means expanding beyond embryo selection to technologies that support the entire process of making and growing embryos. Over time, she also envisions a data-driven platform that can help manage broader factors necessary for healthy pregnancy and birth—such as diet, exercise, mental well-being, and stress management.

“I think there are many possible directions for expansion. In infertility, we could expand into egg or sperm freezing technologies. Depending on the situation, we could offer programs linked to hospitals overseas as well. Right now we’re focused on B2B (selling to clinics), but in the future we could expand into B2C (direct to consumers). What won’t change is our goal of becoming a platform centered on ‘healthy families.’ Under that umbrella, the most urgent problem is low birth rates, and the fastest way to address it right now is to help solve infertility—so that’s what we’re doing.”

Another important point, she added, is that infertility—and the declining birth rate it influences—is not limited by borders, which also strengthens the business case for global expansion. Kai Health, for example, won an IMDA award at a startup demo day held at Singapore’s PIXEL, hosted by organizations including D.CAMP and IMDA. Lee shared her global plans and her aspirations going forward:

“In the future, I believe we’ll be able to do various projects connected with Singapore government agencies—like PoCs (proofs of concept) with local hospitals. ‘Kai’ means ‘ocean’ in Hawaiian. I want to grow Kai Health into a company that finds insights in an ocean of data and builds solutions that support the whole family. That’s also something I personally want to build as a parent raising two daughters—one in middle school and one in elementary school. Even in a tough world, family matters, and the desire to care for someone exists in everyone.”

Source: Tech42 · (Byline/date not confirmed; page access restricted) · Originally published in Korean · English translation

[Interview] Hyejun Lee, CEO of Kai Health: “We’re solving infertility with AI vision technology.”