Upstage, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup, has officially become the first South Korean generative AI company to achieve unicorn status, with its corporate valuation surpassing KRW 1 trillion. Upstage announced the successful closing of its first Series C funding round, totaling KRW 180 billion.
This milestone comes approximately five years after its inception in October 2020. The company is solidifying its position as a representative leader in the AI sector, performing exceptionally well in the Sovereign AI Foundation Model project, which aims to select national-representative AI enterprises. This momentum is also expected to bolster its push for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) targeted for the second half of the year.
This round was led by Sazze Partners, a Silicon Valley-based global venture capital firm that has been an early investor providing follow-on funding across all previous rounds. Other major institutional investors, including Premier Partners, Shinhan Venture Investment, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, KB Securities, and Intervest, also participated. New investors included global firms like Axiom Asia, as well as Hyundai Motor Group, Kia, and Woori Venture Partners.
Upstage provides AI solutions based on its proprietary Large Language Model (LLM), Solar, and its document-processing AI, Document Parse. The company has distinguished itself in the field with revenue growing by more than 130% annually. Last year, it was selected as the lead company for the Sovereign AI Foundation Model project hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT. The company explained that it has established itself as a national representative in AI in terms of both technical prowess and business viability.
With this first closing of Series C, Upstage’s cumulative investment has expanded to approximately 400 billion KRW. Since its founding in 2020, Upstage has secured large-scale investments in every round, starting from Seed funding to Series A (31.6 billion KRW) in 2021, Series B (100 billion KRW) in 2024, and a Series B Bridge (62 billion KRW) in 2025.
Upstage plans to utilize the newly secured funds to expand its GPU infrastructure for advancing AI models, including the Sovereign AI project. Additionally, the company intends to recruit top talent from home and abroad and focus on pioneering sales channels in overseas markets, such as the U.S. and Japan.
