Customer Success Stories | ONCOCROSS 💊
How ONCOCROSS Uses QuotaBook to Communicate with Investors and Employees
How does ONCOCROSS work?
ONCOCROSS is a biotechnological firm started by CEO/Co-Founder Dr. Kim Yi Rang, who previously worked as a Doctoral Fellow in Asan Medical Center after getting his PhD degrees in Medical Science from KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). ONCOCROSS develops pharmaceuticals using Artificial Intelligence based on transcriptomic database. Its name, which brings together two words ONCO and CROSS, implies a blend of conventional medical science and cutting-edge technology to create something new.
ONCOCROSS is the first Korean company to develop new drug candidates for sarcopenia (condition of losing skeletal muscle mass and function) through an AI platform. It also developed a gene expression pattern-based AI platform that reduces time spent on new drug development and probability of clinical trials failure. Over 20,000 drugs are being monitored on this AI platform, analyzing around 6,000 diseases and 70,000 cancer patients’ data so far. ONCOCROSS has raised about USD 14 million last year from various local financial institutions, which totals up to USD 19 million funding raised so far.
QuotaBook’s Customer Success team vistied ONCOCROSS to meet Daeha Kim, head of HR and Finance, to learn more about its business and experience with QuotaBook.
QuotaBook (Q): Hi! Could you please briefly introduce yourself and your role at ONCOCROSS?
Daeha Kim (D): I am currently leading HR and Finance at ONCOCROSS, responsible for recruitment, employee benefits, and team culture, as well as running and managing capital. I also take care of shareholder management.
Q: How would you introduce ONCOCROSS?
D: Simple, a startup developing drugs through AI. As mentioned earlier, ONCOCROSS is a firm that develops new drugs through Artificial Intelligence. We specialize in ‘developing’ new drugs through our own biology and AI research centers, while most of the pharmaceutical firms focus more on ‘discovering’ the candidates for a new drug- a key difference that sets us apart.
We also try to find out if these medicines or candidates could serve other positive purposes on top of their original ones. In other words, we uncover new possibilities through AI. For example, suppose medicine A was developed to target stomach cancer. We would try to observe if medicine A can also be effective in treating, say, lung cancer. Medicines and candidates that were regarded ineffective in their first and second clinical trials can also become helpful for other purposes. So, our work is valuable to a lot of stakeholders because it is about discovering the unseen possibilities of a failed clinical trial that ultimately saves time, money, and effort spent.
Q: What kind of a future is ONCOCROSS dreaming as a biotechnological company?
D: Our final goal is to pioneer rare and incurable diseases with our AI for new drugs development. Developing drugs for inaccessible diseases like cancer, sarcopenia, pediatric epilepsy would help people worldwide as well as our firm grow in scale. We are constantly trying to gain technological edge to achieve our goal.
Q: Moving on, you oversee a lot of responsibilities, including HR and finance, which must be difficult to handle. I wonder why you’ve adopted QuotaBook and how it is helping your work.
D: Since our Series B last year, we started receiving many reporting and data update requests from our investors. Especially when it comes to institutional investors, you need to update them on your business performances, ask for consents on certain matters and most importantly, share the most up-to-date cap tables from time to time.
Cap table became difficult to manage as we started having more investors, meaning frequent change in ownership and even secondary transactions. Updating everything manually was risky and time consuming. That’s when I heard about QuotaBook. With QuotaBook, I am spending a lot less time on managing cap tables. I no longer need to make separate ones to fulfill every investor’s request.
Stock option management is also something we use very well. We still have some time left till our first vesting to happen, so it isn’t a must-have feature for now, but we are tracking every ESO granted to check and prepare for the actual vesting. When the time comes, I’m sure QuotaBook will simplify our stock option related tasks as well.
On top of everything, I’d like to comment on how QuotaBook actively reflects the voice of customers. Whenever I have any feedback, you always respond and update so quickly, which I am very satisfied as a user.
Q: Thank you for the comments, glad that we could help! Before we finish, is there anything you expect from Quotabook?
D: I am already very happy with the startup features such as cap table management and scenario simulation. I do hope more investors start using QuotaBook so that it takes complete care of every communication that goes on between startups and VCs. I can then see QuotaBook really positioning itself as the all-in-one platform for equity management.
Make equity simple with QuotaBook - QuotaBook is a SaaS-based equity management solution for both Startups and Venture Capital funds. Startups and VCs can sync crucial equity-related data such as cap tables, employee stock options as well as investor updates on our platform so that every stakeholder can communicate through a single source of truth. QuotaBook is the No. 1 equity management software for startups in Korea, trusted by 2000+ startups & VCs and backed by more than 20 VC funds.