Korean cosmetic surgery review app Gangnam Unni reconnected with Japanese base

[Source: Healingpaper]

Healingpaper, the operator of Gangnam Unni, a leading cosmetic surgery review platform in South Korea, has resumed a cross-border service for Japanese users after two-year-long hiatus from pandemic.

In August 2020, Gangnam Unni acquired then Japanese rival app Lucmo to expand its service coverage from Korea to Japan. Lucmo launched in September 2017 has 100,000 reviews from cosmetic surgery patients in Japan and 180,000 users.

With the resumed service, Japanese users are able to compare and search medical information and user reviews of Japanese cosmetic surgery hospitals as well as Korean hospitals, for application for counseling. All hospital information and reviews are automatically translated, and real-time translation is also supported during online chat consultations between Japanese users and Korean hospitals.

Gangnam Unni first launched its cross-border service for Japanese interested in cosmetic surgery in Korea in November 2019. The app became popular with a 150 percent jump in hospital counseling requests just three months after the service launch.

But the prolonged pandemic forced the company to do business directly in the local market. The number of foreign patients at plastic surgery and dermatology clinics surged to 175,688 in 2019 right before the pandemic, but in 2020, it plummeted by about 82 percent to 31,994.

Gangnam Unni commands the largest cosmetic surgery review app in Japan in terms of hospitals associated with the app. As of June, the number of Japanese hospitals and clinics accessible with the Gangnam Unni app nearly tripled to some 900 from the previous year. The number of Japanese users who selected both Korean and Japanese hospitals through Gangnam Unni grew by 17 times in the same period.

Gangnam Unni attracted 18.5 billion won ($14.24 million) from Legend Capital, a leading global venture and growth capital firm, in April 2020, demonstrating its capability to go global. Users are now able to access 1,600 Korean and Japanese hospitals and clinics and 1 million surgery reviews. The number of Japanese users is about 400,000, taking up about 10 percent of 3.8 million users in total.

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