The Big Money Starts Moving
Until now, every time we got a mention in the press or won a competition, investment-related inquiries had come flooding in.
So we’d sift through those contacts, hold meetings, and talk through the timing together when it made sense.
But this wasn’t the time for that.
I still replied to the new inquiries, of course, but now it was time to start pulling in actual money.
“Hello. This is Manager Na Inbeom of BRK Korea.”
“Hello. This is Park Jaeyun, junior staff member at TA Medical.”
“Hello, Manager Na. Long time no see.”
“Likewise, CEO Kim.”
The meeting with BRK Korea had been scheduled for the morning right after the Startup Competition ended.
The contract terms had already been reviewed, so all that was left was to sign.
And while we were at it, it was also a chance to introduce Ms. Jaeyun.
“One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, million, ten million, hundred million…”
As she looked over the contract, Park Jaeyun quietly counted under her breath, checking the figures one by one.
The fact that a contract worth hundreds of millions of won was being discussed seemed to shock her.
“To be honest, instead of a 100 million won contract deposit, we’d be open to reconsidering a straight investment structure. Our headquarters still prefers a 3 billion won investment direction.”
At the words “3 billion won,” Jaeyun couldn’t hide her surprise.
I hadn’t exactly shared the details of our investment talks inside the company, so I guessed that was why she was so stunned.
“I’m sincerely grateful for the offer, but I’m afraid an exclusive contract format would be difficult for us to move forward with. I apologize.”
“Hmm. Would it be possible for you to tell us which companies you’re currently in investment talks with?”
“Since Korea University’s Veterinary Medicine Department, BRK Korea is the first company we’ve met with all the way through contract review. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything new I can update you on.”
Watching Manager Na maintain the faintest of smiles, as if he was a little disappointed, I simply returned a calm smile of my own.
“But you’ll still be the one leading development, right, Mr. Kim?”
“I’ll do my best to lead it through to the productization stage. But once we move beyond the new product launch, I expect another developer will take over the project.”
Even while keeping my smile in place, I firmly turned down anything I couldn’t accept, right when it came up.
“That’s unfortunate. It really would be best if you kept handling it, Mr. Kim.”
“If I keep it on my desk the whole time, I worry I won’t be able to give it the attention it deserves. I appreciate your understanding.”
BRK was likely to be the nicest company we’d meet for a while, but even so, there were still definite points of friction.
They trusted me as the founder, so they wanted me to lead every project myself. They also wanted us to widen the gap against our competitors as much as possible before the investment money came in.
“Siwon, aren’t you turning down really good terms way too ruthlessly?”
Jaeyun looked uneasy at the sight of me choosing 100 million won over 3 billion, as if I were throwing away something valuable.
But she wasn’t stupid for whispering that to me.
If I hadn’t already had business experience, I would definitely have done exactly what BRK wanted.
“If you’re confident you can earn more than 3 billion won, sometimes you have to be willing to walk away without hesitation.”
So I answered her calmly and then resumed the conversation with Manager Na.
“The deposit will be made on the 20th of next month. Would that schedule work for you?”
“Yes. Please proceed according to your internal procedures.”
“Very good. You can take the contract with you now. Thank you for your time.”
“Thank you.”
After the signing was done, I accepted Manager Na’s farewell, took the elevator down, and stepped outside.
Jaeyun looked at me with a thoroughly bewildered expression.
“Mr. Siwon. We were only there for thirty minutes. Is it really okay to leave already?”
“Thirty minutes is more than enough time to have a meaningful conversation.”
“But—didn’t we just sign a contract worth hundreds of millions of won? Aren’t we supposed to at least eat together afterward?”
“Hm. Yes, but it isn’t mealtime.”
Still not fully understanding, Jaeyun trailed after me to the next meeting.
This time, we were meeting with professors from Korea University’s Radiology Department.
The meeting was held briefly at the university hospital café.
“Sorry we’ve had to come three times because of the product explanation.”
“Not at all, Professor. It just means more people are taking an interest.”
“But this can tell whether a tumor is malignant or not?”
“Yes, that’s right. If you look at this image, you can see that the AI doesn’t mark benign tumors at all.”
After the meeting at the café, which lasted less than an hour, we got into the car to head for lunch, and Jaeyun immediately turned to me with a confused look.
“Mr. Siwon. Are all these meetings actually meaningful?”
“Huh?”
“They barely even talk, then the meeting ends with them taking a 100 million won contract. Other meetings just end after hearing the product explanation without even asking the price. If we keep meeting people one by one like this, it feels like it’ll never end! It doesn’t even feel like real networking.”
Jaeyun seemed dissatisfied with the meetings in more ways than one.
Meetings that ended after things that could have been handled by email. Meetings where no commercial topic was brought up at all.
Maybe all of that had looked to her like pointless power-tripping.
“Ms. Jaeyun, we’re already in a position where we should be grateful just for people agreeing to meet us like this.”
So I calmly explained the situation.
“The first meeting is about stamping the contract and exchanging copies that haven’t been tampered with. The second is about getting professors who are careful about new technology to take an interest in our product and come to trust it.”
Only after hearing me out did Jaeyun’s expression loosen a little.
It quickly turned embarrassed, though.
“Thank you for being so enthusiastic. But when all these meetings come together, they create a much bigger effect.”
“Yes…”
“Why the long face? Let’s just go eat. We still have three hours until the next meeting.”
“Yes.”
We were cheerfully looking for a restaurant when the professor from Korea University’s Radiology Department called all of a sudden.
“Yes, Professor. Hello.”
“Ah, CEO Kim. Are you busy today?”
“I’m free. Is something wrong?”
“Nothing like that. About what you mentioned earlier—we were wondering if we could at least try the demo version! We’d like to handle it ourselves for a bit.”
Right. Of course it wasn’t meaningless after all.
“Of course, Professor. Please let me know whenever you need it!”
“Really? So it’s free, then? If you haven’t gone far, could you come install it now?”
“Yes, understood.”
“When you get here, just tell the front desk my name and come on up~”
“Understood. Thank you.”
After I hung up and looked to the side, Jaeyun was staring at me with an almost moved expression.
“This can really happen that suddenly?!”
“For meetings that only took a few rounds to get to this point, it’s a pretty good harvest, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is! But wait, does this all really have approval from the higher-ups? And already, today?”
“It may be because it’s free. Or maybe they’ve already discussed everything. Anyway, shall we push lunch back a little?”
“Yes!”
Seeing Jaeyun brighten up so quickly made the results feel oddly more real to me too.
Our product was going to be used at one of the country’s top hospitals.
If they were satisfied with it and became actual customers, market penetration would happen faster than I’d expected.
“But is it really okay to install a product that still hasn’t been approved? They didn’t even mention that it’s for academic use.”
“The professors aren’t going to use an unapproved product on patients. This is more likely for reviewing cases and seeing how it works in practice.”
Our steps back toward the university hospital felt light.
The university hospital Siwon visited was soon full of talk about him.
“He looked incredibly young in person, didn’t he?”
“Still, if you read the articles and look into him a bit, he doesn’t seem like a kid at all.”
“At Korea University’s Veterinary Medicine Department, they already say they’ve got his stuff deployed across the board for academic use.”
“Well, we’ve already installed it too, so I can’t exactly complain.”
The professors’ stance was remarkably consistent.
They weren’t fully convinced, but it looked good enough that they were willing to verify it themselves.
“He said it comes up right away if you just take a chest X-ray, right? In under three seconds.”
“Let’s start with benign tumor cases. I hate overreacting to something unnecessary more than I hate missing something that’s obviously there.”
So the professors began running through the cases they had, one by one.
Starting with the easy ones.
“It finds that too.”
“That’s amazing. What kind of mechanism is it using?”
“They say even they don’t know. The AI just does it on its own.”
“Are we giving it cases that are too easy?”
Of course, the verification gradually moved on to more difficult cases.
Cases even the professors themselves couldn’t find.
“Wow. How did it find that in an image like this?”
“It missed a few of the ones taken in AP view. But he did say earlier that was because the training data was limited.”
“That’s a shame.”
The professors discussed the matter with perfect objectivity.
The conversation continued with real patience while they waited for the food they’d ordered to arrive.
“Where did you say this had been distributed for academic use?”
“This? I don’t know. The veterinary version went to the Veterinary Medicine Department.”
“I feel like this isn’t something we should just talk about in words anymore. We should probably make it into a research topic.”
“Oh? I was thinking the same thing. What would the topic be?”
“That’s what we need to decide now.”
No one immediately suggested that the product be introduced to the hospital right away.
That caution was only natural, since it still hadn’t been approved.
But the professors, who could already see the product’s potential, wanted to make use of it however they could.
“I thought this new technology would be a hassle, but it’s nice that it’s easy to use.”
“Exactly. I expected it to make us jump through hoops, but it’s automatic.”
“Ugh, there’s just too much stuff coming out these days. It’s exhausting.”
The conversation naturally drifted to other topics, but every one of them was quietly thinking about how they might use the product.
They were skeptical, curious, and intrigued all at once.
The moment the demo version had been installed, interest in the product itself had shot up.
“TA Medical won first place in another government-sponsored competition, didn’t they?”
Interest inside the veterinary field was naturally rising too.
It had already been high when Korea University’s Veterinary Medicine Department announced that it would use the product across the board.
Then they heard we’d won another award, and that was enough to make them move decisively and contact TA Medical.
“Hey, CEO Siwon. Could our university install this for academic use too?”
“Exactly when is this thing getting approved? If there’s a demo version, I’d love to try it.”
None of these contacts were about immediate revenue.
But from Siwon’s perspective, knowing how difficult it was to move from vague interest to actual installation, every one of them was precious.
“Mr. Siwon! We just got a call from some investment company saying they want to invest 5 billion won!”
“Are you talking about the 5 billion won investment from that pharmaceutical company yesterday? I already passed that on to you.”
“Oh? No, this is an email from a different company today.”
There had been so many inquiries about prepayments and investments that all Siwon had left to do was choose where to take the money from.
“Looks like it’s time to go see that person again.”
TA Medical had now reached the stage where it could be shaped however Kim Siwon wanted it to be.