Korean AI startup Upstage has finalized its acquisition of Daum, one of Korea’s oldest and most recognized web portals, completing the purchase of AXZ — the portal’s operating company and a former wholly owned subsidiary of Kakao. The deal, which closed after roughly four months of due diligence, marks a pivotal moment in the country’s AI industry as the company sets its sights on transforming the legacy platform into a next-generation AI portal.
The two companies first signaled the deal in January 2026, when Upstage and Kakao each held board meetings to approve a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a stock-swap transaction. Under the terms of the agreement, Kakao transferred its full 100% stake in AXZ to Upstage in exchange for a 15–25% equity stake in Upstage. The arrangement, which industry sources say was originally proposed by Upstage, effectively gives Kakao a financial interest in the AI startup’s future growth while allowing it to exit the portal business.
At the heart of Upstage’s strategic rationale is its proprietary large language model (LLM), Solar. The company plans to integrate Solar directly into Daum’s search engine and leverage the portal’s decades-long content archive — including data from services like Tistory blogs and Daum Cafe communities — to further train and refine its AI capabilities. Upstage has described this data trove, accumulated over Daum’s roughly 30-year history, as one of the most valuable assets of the acquisition.
The deal also signals Upstage’s long-awaited push into the business-to-consumer (B2C) market. The company has until now focused primarily on enterprise B2B AI solutions, but acquiring a portal with a nationwide user base gives it a direct channel to everyday consumers. Upstage envisions rebuilding Daum’s full suite of services around AI — effectively reimagining the portal as a platform where users can interact with AI natively and seamlessly.
The acquisition comes on the heels of a strong fundraising run for Upstage. The company recently closed a 180 billion won (~$130 million USD) Series C funding round, a milestone that pushed its valuation above 1 trillion won and earned it unicorn status — the first domestic AI company in Korea to reach that threshold. Its Solar Open 100B model has also drawn international recognition, having been highlighted as a noteworthy AI model by Stanford University.
