Personal eyewear startup 'breezm' announced on Feb. 3 that it has secured a Series A investment of KRW 5.4 billion.

The investment was led by existing investor Seoul Techno Holdings (Seoul National University Holdings), with new investors including Industrial Bank of Korea and Translink Investment. This brings the cumulative investment to Krw 10 billion.

'breezm' uses innovative technologies such as 3D printing, 3D scanning, and AI style recommendations to create personalized eyewear. Since its inception in 2017, the company has been offering 1:1 personal consultations between professional opticians and customers through a 100% appointment system. It opened its Magok, Sinsa store in December last year and operates a total of eight stores in the Seoul Gyeonggi region.

With this investment, breezm plans to expand its target audience from its main customer base of men aged 30-50 to include adolescents and the presbyopic population, and plans to launch related new products in the first half of the year. The company has also expanded its production facilities to meet the increased demand with a new HP 5200 3D printer.

In particular, based on the successful experience of running a pop-up store in New York earlier this year, the company aims to open an antenna shop in the second half of the year and accelerate its entry into the US market through full-scale promotional marketing.

"In the Korean eyewear industry, which has long been a blind spot for innovation, breezm has ushered in the era of personal eyewear by incorporating 3D technology into eyewear," said Seung-Hwan Mok, CEO of Seoul Techno Holdings (Seoul National University Holdings), who has participated in the seed investment. "We are pleased to participate in the funding at a time when the company is preparing for full-scale growth and look forward to establishing itself as a global eyewear brand, especially as the demand for eyewear increases globally due to the proliferation of mobile devices."

"The eyewear industry is a large market worth KRW 2.7 trillion in Korea and KRW 183 trillion globally, but there were many consumers who suffered from inconvenience due to one-size-fits-all," said Hyung Jin Park, CEO of breezm. "We will expand the consumer base based on our technology to create customized glasses with 3D scanned data of customers' facial data, and furthermore, pioneer the personalized eyewear market overseas."