KRACE' : Connecting Foreign Patients to Korean Medical Services
Filmed at Pangyo Technovalley, this interview with RnPT CEO Youju Jo traces the founding story behind KRACE — from her experience at a New Jersey hospital to building an AI-powered platform that connects international patients with Korea's best local healthcare institutions.
About This Interview
Filmed at Pangyo Technovalley Startup Campus, this video interview features RnPT CEO and founder Youju Jo in conversation with interviewer Jay. She shares the story behind founding RnPT, the problem KRACE is built to solve, and her vision for making Korean healthcare genuinely accessible to international patients worldwide.
The Founding Story
Youju Jo's path to founding RnPT began during her time working at a breast imaging center in a New Jersey general hospital. She observed that while the imaging procedures themselves were quick, patients often waited up to four hours due to fragmented processes — separate queues for X-ray, ultrasound, and results.
When she returned to Korea, she noticed a striking contrast: local clinics delivered the same procedures efficiently, with minimal wait times and high-quality equipment — including MRI capabilities that in the US would typically require a visit to a general hospital.
"If foreign patients knew about Korean local hospitals, they would love the system. I wanted to build something that made that possible."
What KRACE Does
KRACE is an end-to-end international patient access platform that handles the full care journey in one place:
- Hospital discovery — patients browse local clinic profiles including doctor backgrounds, available equipment, and locations
- Booking and payment — appointments and payments processed through a single multilingual system
- Aftercare — post-treatment monitoring and follow-up coordination built into the platform
- AI-powered matching — patients input their health profile and medical history; the algorithm recommends the most suitable institutions and learns from feedback over time
The platform is designed specifically to remove the barriers that make Korean healthcare hard to navigate for international patients — including language gaps, digital certification requirements, and unfamiliarity with the local system.
Why Local Clinics?
Most international patients default to large general hospitals in Korea — not because local clinics lack quality, but because they lack visibility. KRACE was built to change that. Local clinics in Korea offer advanced diagnostic equipment, fast service, and competitive pricing. KRACE gives them the infrastructure — booking systems, multilingual interfaces, payment tools — they would otherwise need to build themselves.
Target Market and Expansion
KRACE launched with a focus on English-speaking international patients, with plans to expand to a fully multilingual platform over time. Initial service areas include health screenings, dermatology, and dental care — categories with particularly strong international demand.
Geographically, RnPT is prioritizing the United States first, with Japan and Southeast Asia to follow. The US strategy centers on Korean Americans who are already familiar with Korea's medical quality and are seeking cost-effective alternatives to domestic US care — including health screenings and follow-up coordination that can bridge the patient's home country and Korea.
"If a patient gets a health screening here and needs follow-up care back home, we want to be able to connect them with the right facility in their own country too."
Platform Format
KRACE launched as a web-based platform with a mobile-optimized interface — a deliberate choice based on research showing that international visitors face significant friction downloading and registering for apps without a Korean phone number or national ID. A dedicated app is planned for a later phase.
Pangyo as Home Base
Headquartered at Pangyo Technovalley, RnPT benefits from a dense network of tech companies, foreign professionals, and startup support infrastructure. CEO Youju Jo cites the community as essential — not just for technical development support, but for peer mentorship from other founders navigating similar growth challenges.
RnPT was also selected to participate in the GBSA-organized forum in New York, providing early access to global investor networks.