South Korean medical cannabis company Neocannbio, backed by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), has raised 10 billion won in Series B funding.

The round was led by new investors Quad Investment Management, Bilanx Investment, Donghun Investment, and Prologue Ventures. Existing investors Meditox Ventures, HLB Investment, and BM Ventures also participated in the follow-on investment.

Neocannbio, which raised 4.5 billion won in Series A funding last July with a valuation of about 30 billion won, was valued at around 55 billion won in this round of funding. The company has doubled its valuation in just over a year and has secured 15 billion won in cumulative funding in its second year of operation.

Neocannbio plans to use the funds to expand its business of supplying food and cosmetics derived from cannabis cannabinoids to global markets through a joint venture (JV) currently being established in Thailand. It also plans to accelerate its drug development business, which is currently underway with universities and CROs in Israel.

Neocannbio CEO Ham Jung-yeop said, “Following the discovery of the efficacy of cannabis for Alzheimer’s disease in a paper published in a prestigious journal earlier this year, we recently discovered a synergistic effect with liver cancer and have even filed a patent overseas. We are actively conducting joint research with HLB BioScience to develop cannabis-derived drugs. Our next goal is to become a leading cannabis company in Asia in the global market, which is showing explosive growth due to the global trend of easing cannabis regulations.”