“ConnexioH will prove credit using e-commerce data, lower the financial barriers for online small merchants”
“ConnexioH will prove credit using e-commerce data, lower the financial barriers for online small merchants”
Posted October. 27, 2025 13:54,
Updated October. 27, 2025 13:58
- ConnexioH uses e-commerce data and AI to help small online merchants access
credit by visualizing their business performance, overcoming the limitations of
traditional financial assessments.
- Their core services include analytics dashboards, data platforms for alternative
credit scoring, and visualization tools for banks and financial institutions.
- The company aims to create social value by enabling fair financial evaluations
for online businesses and promoting inclusive finance, despite regulatory
challenges.
The number of online shopping startups is booming, lured by the promise of launching with no capital and no physical storefront. But this promise quickly fades when they seek funding.
Lacking the traditional financial statements to prove their performance, these small merchants are often shut out from bank loans. This sparks a "vicious cycle" where entrepreneurs are forced to use personal credit and household loans to fund their operations.
One company, ConnexioH, has stepped in to solve these limitations using data and artificial intelligence (AI). The firm works to visualize the "invisible credit" of online entrepreneurs based on their e-commerce data.
Its core products include the ‘CH Data Lake,’ which processes e-commerce data for financial institutions; ‘CAH Cre-pan (On-sell),’ a visualization tool for online seller credit; a ‘Data Service’ offering market insights to card companies; and ‘Memopan,’ an analytics dashboard for Naver Smart Store sellers. ConnexioH’s mission is to provide tangible growth opportunities by substantiating the performance and credit of online businesses with data.
Data Management Know-how... Focusing on the Financial Hurdles of Small Merchants
ConnexioH CEO Kyung-ho Lee built his career as an IT security expert before joining Korea University as a professor, where he ran a risk management lab. While analyzing corporate credit risk, he noted that data gaps and the ability to understand context in unstructured data were key elements in identifying risk.
"Unlike in a research lab where refined data is used, in the field, data collection and refinement account for 90% of the entire process," said Lee. "ConnexioH has leveraged this technical expertise and know-how to focus on the e-commerce sector."
The decision to launch the company came after Lee witnessed the harsh reality facing small merchants who had transitioned to e-commerce: they were unable to secure proper financial support.
"The existing financial system's credit evaluation method was primarily based on annual or semi-annual financial assessments or physical collateral," Lee explained. "Banks considered lending to online operators, who lack offline stores or real estate collateral, to be a high-risk proposition. As a result, even small online businesses with high potential struggled to get appropriate funding."
"I believed that utilizing the real-time activity data generated daily on online platforms would enable accurate and fair evaluation," he continued. "We began collecting and refining e-commerce data, and this evolved into 'credit data that proves a business's capability.'"
Lee established the company through a faculty-led startup program. He resolved to act as a vital link, providing objective indicators to the risk-averse financial sector and offering a tool for small merchants to prove their potential.
Core Services: Memopan, CH DataLake, and On-sell
Among ConnexioH's main services, 'Memopan' is an AI-powered ana
lytics dashboard for the 570,000 sellers on Naver Smart Store. Its key feature is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) support.
"To ensure product exposure, inputting keywords and attribute information that match search intent is essential," Lee said. "Memopan supports these often-overlooked optimization tasks by analyzing product exposure, search keywords, and trends in reviews and 'likes'." The service signed up 10,000 businesses within its first week and has now surpassed 50,000 cumulative users. It is scheduled for a full release to all users next year.
Concurrently, the company is expanding its B2B business targeting the financial sector. The 'CH DataLake' is a data specification platform that processes e-commerce data into a format usable for alternative credit scoring and provides it periodically. ConnexioH currently supplies over 110 data items monthly to NICE Information Service and has signed supply contracts with major card companies, including KB Kookmin Card and Shinhan Card.
Built on this platform, 'CAH Cre-pan (On-sell)' is a data visualization tool for bank branches. It displays an online seller's sales flow and growth potential on a map. "Online businesses, which can be started without a physical store, have no collateral, making credit evaluation difficult," Lee noted. "On-sell analyzes various information, such as the operator's location, current status, and business activity level, and visualizes it on a dashboard."
The service was selected for a pilot test by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and is currently being tested in partnership with BNK Busan Bank. Separately, ConnexioH also provides e-commerce data directly to card companies, enabling them to secure insights on brand markets, pricing, and competitors.
Ontology and AI Turn Data into 'Meaning'
ConnexioH collects and refines petabyte-scale e-commerce data accumulated over four years since 2022, analyzing it in real-time with AI. Furthermore, the company is developing an ontology-based AI engine to transform this vast data into meaningful information. Ontology refers to the technology that flexibly structures data according to the specific purpose and perspective of a service.
For example, even with a single sales data point for a specific business, the criteria for judging missing values and the contextual flow of preceding and succeeding data will differ depending on whether it's being viewed for loan screening or marketing trend analysis. ConnexioH's value, Lee explained, lies not just in providing data, but in tailoring it to the financial industry's evaluation standards to aid decision-making. The company also plans to integrate this with Large Language Models (LLMs) to support query responses in natural language.
"Data and Technology Must Become an Economic Ladder"
Launched in 2020 as a faculty-led startup, ConnexioH is growing based on its data technology and strategic partnerships. The company entered a phase of full-scale revenue growth this year, expecting 3 billion KRW on a contract basis, with 5 billion KRW projected for next year.
It has built cooperative relationships with major credit bureaus like NICE Information Service and KCB, as well as major card companies and banks. KB Kookmin Bank and NICE Information Service have also participated as investors. "We plan to pursue an IPO by 2029 based on revenue," Lee stated, "and will advance the CAH service into the financial sector while entering the global market with our AI-based ontology service."
The approach to overseas expansion is a technology-first strategy: provide the ontology solution as open source to build influence within the ecosystem. As part of this strategy, ConnexioH is collaborating with Oracle on a data lake-based LLM research project through a global corporate collaboration program at Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SeoulTech). "Through this project, we are receiving practical support, including business direction consulting and IR opportunities," Lee said.
Ultimately, ConnexioH's goal is to serve as an "economic ladder," using data and technology to help small merchants receive fair evaluations and achieve business growth.
"To maintain the middle class, we must solve structural problems," Lee emphasized. "We don't just need financial support; we need tools that teach people how to make money."
"However, there are still challenges to overcome," he added. "Under current law, a company seeking to obtain a credit assessment business license must be majority-owned (over 50%) by a financial institution. This makes it very difficult for a startup to get this license. It is also difficult for an independent data company like ours to provide data to banks. We are continuously discussing this with the Financial Services Commission and trying to improve the system."
"ConnexioH will ultimately add value to e-commerce data, providing new financial opportunities to online business owners who were difficult to evaluate with traditional financial data alone," Lee concluded. "We will grow into a company that creates social value by reducing the number of the financially underserved and realizing inclusive finance."
By Ye-ji Kim (yj@itdonga.com)
* This article was written with support from Seoul National University of Science and Technology.
credit by visualizing their business performance, overcoming the limitations of
traditional financial assessments.
- Their core services include analytics dashboards, data platforms for alternative
credit scoring, and visualization tools for banks and financial institutions.
- The company aims to create social value by enabling fair financial evaluations
for online businesses and promoting inclusive finance, despite regulatory
challenges.
The number of online shopping startups is booming, lured by the promise of launching with no capital and no physical storefront. But this promise quickly fades when they seek funding.
Lacking the traditional financial statements to prove their performance, these small merchants are often shut out from bank loans. This sparks a "vicious cycle" where entrepreneurs are forced to use personal credit and household loans to fund their operations.
One company, ConnexioH, has stepped in to solve these limitations using data and artificial intelligence (AI). The firm works to visualize the "invisible credit" of online entrepreneurs based on their e-commerce data.
Kyung-ho Lee, CEO of ConnexioH / source=IT dongA
Its core products include the ‘CH Data Lake,’ which processes e-commerce data for financial institutions; ‘CAH Cre-pan (On-sell),’ a visualization tool for online seller credit; a ‘Data Service’ offering market insights to card companies; and ‘Memopan,’ an analytics dashboard for Naver Smart Store sellers. ConnexioH’s mission is to provide tangible growth opportunities by substantiating the performance and credit of online businesses with data.
Data Management Know-how... Focusing on the Financial Hurdles of Small Merchants
ConnexioH CEO Kyung-ho Lee built his career as an IT security expert before joining Korea University as a professor, where he ran a risk management lab. While analyzing corporate credit risk, he noted that data gaps and the ability to understand context in unstructured data were key elements in identifying risk.
"Unlike in a research lab where refined data is used, in the field, data collection and refinement account for 90% of the entire process," said Lee. "ConnexioH has leveraged this technical expertise and know-how to focus on the e-commerce sector."
The decision to launch the company came after Lee witnessed the harsh reality facing small merchants who had transitioned to e-commerce: they were unable to secure proper financial support.
"The existing financial system's credit evaluation method was primarily based on annual or semi-annual financial assessments or physical collateral," Lee explained. "Banks considered lending to online operators, who lack offline stores or real estate collateral, to be a high-risk proposition. As a result, even small online businesses with high potential struggled to get appropriate funding."
"I believed that utilizing the real-time activity data generated daily on online platforms would enable accurate and fair evaluation," he continued. "We began collecting and refining e-commerce data, and this evolved into 'credit data that proves a business's capability.'"
Lee established the company through a faculty-led startup program. He resolved to act as a vital link, providing objective indicators to the risk-averse financial sector and offering a tool for small merchants to prove their potential.
Kyung-ho Lee, CEO of ConnexioH / source=IT dongA
Core Services: Memopan, CH DataLake, and On-sell
Among ConnexioH's main services, 'Memopan' is an AI-powered ana
lytics dashboard for the 570,000 sellers on Naver Smart Store. Its key feature is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) support.
"To ensure product exposure, inputting keywords and attribute information that match search intent is essential," Lee said. "Memopan supports these often-overlooked optimization tasks by analyzing product exposure, search keywords, and trends in reviews and 'likes'." The service signed up 10,000 businesses within its first week and has now surpassed 50,000 cumulative users. It is scheduled for a full release to all users next year.
‘Memopan’ of ConnexioH / source=ConnexioH
Concurrently, the company is expanding its B2B business targeting the financial sector. The 'CH DataLake' is a data specification platform that processes e-commerce data into a format usable for alternative credit scoring and provides it periodically. ConnexioH currently supplies over 110 data items monthly to NICE Information Service and has signed supply contracts with major card companies, including KB Kookmin Card and Shinhan Card.
Built on this platform, 'CAH Cre-pan (On-sell)' is a data visualization tool for bank branches. It displays an online seller's sales flow and growth potential on a map. "Online businesses, which can be started without a physical store, have no collateral, making credit evaluation difficult," Lee noted. "On-sell analyzes various information, such as the operator's location, current status, and business activity level, and visualizes it on a dashboard."
The service was selected for a pilot test by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and is currently being tested in partnership with BNK Busan Bank. Separately, ConnexioH also provides e-commerce data directly to card companies, enabling them to secure insights on brand markets, pricing, and competitors.
Ontology and AI Turn Data into 'Meaning'
ConnexioH collects and refines petabyte-scale e-commerce data accumulated over four years since 2022, analyzing it in real-time with AI. Furthermore, the company is developing an ontology-based AI engine to transform this vast data into meaningful information. Ontology refers to the technology that flexibly structures data according to the specific purpose and perspective of a service.
CAH Data Lake of ConnexioH / source=ConnexioH
For example, even with a single sales data point for a specific business, the criteria for judging missing values and the contextual flow of preceding and succeeding data will differ depending on whether it's being viewed for loan screening or marketing trend analysis. ConnexioH's value, Lee explained, lies not just in providing data, but in tailoring it to the financial industry's evaluation standards to aid decision-making. The company also plans to integrate this with Large Language Models (LLMs) to support query responses in natural language.
"Data and Technology Must Become an Economic Ladder"
Launched in 2020 as a faculty-led startup, ConnexioH is growing based on its data technology and strategic partnerships. The company entered a phase of full-scale revenue growth this year, expecting 3 billion KRW on a contract basis, with 5 billion KRW projected for next year.
CEO Kyung-ho Lee (left), CTO Hyun-sik Yoon(right) / source=IT dongA
It has built cooperative relationships with major credit bureaus like NICE Information Service and KCB, as well as major card companies and banks. KB Kookmin Bank and NICE Information Service have also participated as investors. "We plan to pursue an IPO by 2029 based on revenue," Lee stated, "and will advance the CAH service into the financial sector while entering the global market with our AI-based ontology service."
The approach to overseas expansion is a technology-first strategy: provide the ontology solution as open source to build influence within the ecosystem. As part of this strategy, ConnexioH is collaborating with Oracle on a data lake-based LLM research project through a global corporate collaboration program at Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SeoulTech). "Through this project, we are receiving practical support, including business direction consulting and IR opportunities," Lee said.
Ultimately, ConnexioH's goal is to serve as an "economic ladder," using data and technology to help small merchants receive fair evaluations and achieve business growth.
"To maintain the middle class, we must solve structural problems," Lee emphasized. "We don't just need financial support; we need tools that teach people how to make money."
"However, there are still challenges to overcome," he added. "Under current law, a company seeking to obtain a credit assessment business license must be majority-owned (over 50%) by a financial institution. This makes it very difficult for a startup to get this license. It is also difficult for an independent data company like ours to provide data to banks. We are continuously discussing this with the Financial Services Commission and trying to improve the system."
"ConnexioH will ultimately add value to e-commerce data, providing new financial opportunities to online business owners who were difficult to evaluate with traditional financial data alone," Lee concluded. "We will grow into a company that creates social value by reducing the number of the financially underserved and realizing inclusive finance."
By Ye-ji Kim (yj@itdonga.com)
* This article was written with support from Seoul National University of Science and Technology.
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