Sasasa, a Korean premium sauna solutions and creative company targeting the fast-growing wellness market, has closed a seed funding round of approximately $450,000 USD (KRW 650 million). The company was also selected for the Pre-TIPS program, a government-backed early-stage startup support initiative run by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.

The round was led by the Busan Center for Creative Economy & Innovation (Busan CCEI), which contributed approximately $69,200 USD (KRW 100 million) in direct investment through its Busan Unicorn Startup Individual Investment Association. Busan CCEI has spent the past five years identifying high-potential regional companies and backing them with investment and scale-up support programs.

Despite being just three months old, Sasasa has already signed four consulting contracts, including with large sauna facilities in Changwon, demonstrating early commercial traction.

The company is building a next-generation sauna experience platform that combines IoT-based operational automation with wearable bio-data integration and an AI-driven wellness protocol. The approach is designed to modernize Korea’s aging public bathhouse industry and deliver measurable, personalized wellness outcomes for customers. Before formally launching the company, Sasasa had already cultivated a community of over 30,000 Instagram followers, building a strong brand presence ahead of its market entry. The company is also developing a proprietary solution to quantitatively standardize sauna experiences and health effects.

Sasasa is founded by Inmo Jung, a serial entrepreneur who developed the school notification app “I Am School” during his time at KAIST, growing it to one million monthly active users and raising $2.77 million USD (KRW 4 billion) in investment before successfully exiting to an IT company in 2017.

With this seed round and Pre-TIPS backing, Sasasa plans to open a flagship wellness sauna store in a major Seoul commercial district in the first half of 2026, followed by the full-scale rollout of a B2B All-in-One SaaS operating solution for sauna and spa facilities. The company’s long-term vision is to evolve from a sauna venue business into a technology-driven global wellness brand.