"Beyond Ultrasound: Seeing the Unseen"

Barreleye is redefining the limits of ultrasound imaging by delivering diagnostic information that conventional ultrasound devices cannot show. While ultrasound is widely adopted worldwide for being safe, portable, and cost-effective compared with MRI and X-ray, it still has inherent limitations — blurry grayscale images, reliance on examiner experience, and a lack of quantitative tissue information.

Barreleye was founded to break through these limitations.

■ Inspired by the Deep-Sea Barreleye Fish

The company’s name originates from the barreleye, a deep-sea fish that lives 400–2,500 meters below the surface. With a transparent skull and upward-facing eyes, it evolved to capture even the faintest light to perceive what is invisible to others.
This symbolism reflects Barreleye’s vision:
“Beyond Ultrasound: Seeing the Unseen.”
Just as the barreleye perceives what is hidden in the dark, Barreleye aims to reveal clinically meaningful diagnostic information that conventional ultrasound cannot visualize.

■ Recovering Lost Ultrasound Information Through AI

Ultrasound images are formed from sound waves reflected from internal tissues, but a significant portion of raw waveform information is discarded during image reconstruction, leaving only simplified morphological information. As a result, clinicians must interpret blurred grayscale images based on subjective experience.

Barreleye’s AI technology restores the information that is lost in the imaging process by reconstructing quantitative biomechanical tissue properties, transforming low-contrast grayscale images into color-coded, quantitative diagnostic maps.

The solution extracts and quantifies key biomarkers relevant to tumor pathology, including:
• Speed of sound through tissue
• Degree of acoustic attenuation
• Cell size
• Cell density within a region

Clinical studies demonstrate that incorporating Barreleye’s solution improves diagnostic accuracy from 90% to 95% and reduces reading time from 14 seconds to 4 seconds (71% reduction).

■ From Breast Cancer to Liver, Heart, and Lung Applications

Barreleye first applies its solution to breast cancer diagnosis, the area with the greatest immediate clinical need. Expansion to fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary disease is underway.

■ A KAIST Deep-Tech Startup Built on Original Research

Barreleye is a KAIST research-based technology startup founded in 2021.
• Founder and CEO: Prof. Hyeon-Min Bae, School of Electrical Engineering, KAIST
• Co-founder & CTO: Myeong-Gee Kim, who led the core research as a graduate researcher under Prof. Bae

The technology originated from years of academic research on quantitative ultrasound. The team developed the foundational concept in 2016, established a working model by 2018 after extensive trial and error, and launched Barreleye in 2021 to commercialize the world’s first clinically applicable solution.

To date, Barreleye has produced 15 peer-reviewed publications and registered 14 domestic and international patents based on its quantitative ultrasound innovations.

The company expects to complete MFDS approval in August and generate its first revenue thereafter. Revenue projections are: 2024 — KRW 500M, 2025 — KRW 2B, 2026 — KRW 5B, 2027 — KRW 25B, U.S. FDA clearance is anticipated in the second half of 2025.

“We wanted to build a company based not on an idea, but on foundational technology,” said Myeong-Gee Kim, Co-founder and CTO. “Being the first in the world to commercialize this technology and shifting the paradigm of ultrasound diagnosis is what drives us.”

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