PENCO is a startup developing personalized nutrition solutions for pets. With the goal of becoming “a trusted health partner for pet owners,” the company offers customized dietary design services based on objective health data. CEO Soohyun Kim (38) founded the company in June 2025.
PENCO’s core offering is an app-based personalized nutrition design service. For pet owners who prioritize their companions’ health, the service delivers crucial insights into wellness-focused diets and provides the precise nutritional blueprints needed to create them.
When an owner uploads their pet’s health records, PENCO’s system interprets and analyzes the data. Based on this analysis, it generates a custom nutritional plan and recommends specific diets using optimized ingredients.
“Our step-by-step analysis—which extends all the way to recommending the closest commercial pet food matches—helps owners solve the pressing dilemma of ‘What is the right thing to feed my pet right now?’” said CEO Kim.
“Through our AI-powered health analysis, we digitize owner-uploaded health check-up records with 99% accuracy and deliver a full analysis report within one minute,” she explains. “In this process, our AI evaluates the pet’s health status and designs an optimal ratio of the five major nutrients—carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals—to match the individual’s specific metrics.”
PENCO’s primary target audience includes owners of senior pets (age 7+) and those with diagnosed diseases or borderline conditions that require careful dietary management. Just as a person with diabetes follows a specific diet, PENCO helps owners manage their pets’ health at home when facing issues like kidney disease, liver disease, or cancer by designing disease-specific nutritional plans and therapeutic meal recommendations.
“Too often, owners are forced to rely on subjective judgment when choosing their pet’s food. By designing diets using objective health data, we minimize the gap between a pet’s actual condition and its diet. Our unique differentiator is empowering owners to make choices based on a clear, evidence-based standard that is ‘perfectly tailored to my pet.’”
CEO Kim is planning a beta launch event. The company will offer a free health analysis and nutrition design trial to the first 1,000 pet owners, encouraging participants to leave real reviews in order to build service credibility and create promotional buzz. Additionally, PENCO is partnering with veterinary clinics, pet supply stores, and pet grooming shops to integrate the “Get a PENCO Report” service, and will provide a dedicated admin page and promotional materials for clinics to expand its touchpoints with pet owners.
What was the inspiration behind the business? “I shared a 17-year journey with my beloved dog. When he was around 10, he was diagnosed with Cushing’s syndrome. At the time, all I knew to do was give him the medicine prescribed by the vet. I was simply unaware of how crucial diet management was, so I continued feeding him regular kibble. Awareness has grown since then, but owners still struggle to find a diet that is ‘just right’ for their pet. For senior pets or those with illnesses, proper nutrition is just as critical as medical treatment for maintaining their health. A pet’s well-being depends entirely on its guardian, because unlike us, they can’t tell us when they’re sick or manage their own health. That’s why I was driven to create a service that empowers owners to provide proactive, personalized care based on accurate information.”
Regarding future plans, CEO Kim says, “We are developing a dehydrated, powdered Care Pet Food made from natural ingredients. Our goal is for our personalized nutrition design service to go beyond providing information—so owners can actually feed their pets a custom diet product that’s tailored to their needs.”
He continues, “We aim to build an integrated, end-to-end solution that covers data-based nutrition design, personalized meal recommendations, and a Care Pet Food product that can be directly given to pets, allowing owners to easily practice personalized pet health management at home.” Through this, PENCO’s goal is to create a new standard in pet healthcare where data and products are connected—moving beyond a simple analysis service.
Date of Establishment: June 2025
Core Business: Development and operation of a personalized nutrition design platform based on pet health data analysis.
Key Achievements: Completed the pre-incubation program at Seoul National University of Science and Technology (2024) Completed the pre-incubation program at Seoul National University (2024) Selected for the 2025 Pre-Startup Package at Seoul National University Siheung Campus Selected as a resident company of the 2025 SNU Campus Town Selected for the 2025 Seoul Next Local project Selected for the Food-Tech Commercialization Project sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
reporter jinho lee
jinho2323@hankyung.com
