[StartupRecipe] 5 Startups Driving Korea’s AI Ecosystem

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#Weekly Funding Overview

[June.3 ~ June. 7]

The total funds raised by Korean startups of the week is KRW 205.2 Billion.

Company	Inudustry	Amount	Round	Investors
Polaris3D	Robotics	15 billion	Series B	Smilegate Investment, KODIT, Evergreen Investment Partners, JX Partners, Kingo Investment Partners, Hi Investment Partners, JB Investment
INTERX	Manufacturing AI Solution	18 billion	Series B	KDB Development Bank, Korea Investment & Securities, EcoPro Partners, Wonik Investment Partners, Korea Investment Partners, KODIT, BNK Investment & Securities, LS Electric
Dealer tire	Tire marketplace	5 billion		Korea Development Bank, ES Investor, TBT Partners, HL Holdings, Strong Ventures
DWhale	HR	-	Series A	Korea Investment Partners, We Ventures, 500 Global
Jeclean	Bedding recycling	-	Series A	DAEDEOK VENTURE PARTNERS​
Shotcake	Content	-	M&A	Playlist
Tau Medical	Medical device	22 billion	Series C	Smilegate Investment, Stonebridge Ventures, We Ventures, Gu equity, Korea Development Bank
Cosmos lab	Water battery	4.8 billion	Pre-Series A	Hi Investment Partners, Gyeongnam Venture Investment, Rising S Ventures, Golden Oak Ventures, KODIT
Souvis	Industrial AI	-		Series Ventuers
Cetek	CO2 capture tech	900 million		Korea Investment Accelerator
Agefree	Senior career edu	-	Seed	Kakao Ventures, Korea Investment Partners, Channel Bom
Twelve labs	Multimodal AI	70 billion	Series A	ew Enterprise Associates, NVentures, Index Ventures, Radical Ventures, WndrCo, and Korea Investment Partners
Robo Arete	Food Robot	-		Paser Enterprise
Ntecbios	Green bio	2 billion	Pre-Series A	ENSL Partners, Korea Business Angle Association
Soteria	Fabless	33 billion	Series B
Wrtn Technoogies	Gen AI	25 billion	Pre-series B	BRV Capital Management, Capstone Partners, IBK Industrial Bank, Z Venture Capital
Spotlite	Model casting platform	800 million		Antler Korea, Strong Ventures, The Ventures
From Seoul	Avatar platform	-	Seed	D.Camp, The Vetures
Vestelalab	Indoor Location Service	3 billion	Series B	Samho Green Investment, JCH Investment, Kangwon National University Technology Holdings, Ajou IB
LSBIO	Bio	-	Pre-Series A	New Paradigm Investment, Korea Alternative Investment Asset Management
Frankit	Franchise platform	-	Grant	TIPS

#Major Funding

• TwelveLabs, an AI video understanding specialist, has secured a $50 million investment from global investors. The cumulative investment amount has reached $77 million. Developing multi-modal video understanding technology, TwelveLabs plans to use the latest investment to release monthly updates for its ultra-large AI video language generation models ‘Pegasus’ and ‘Marengo’, which were launched in March.
• Soteria, a fabless startup, has raised $33 million in funding. Established in 2018, the company specializes in ultra-low-power high-performance computing (HPC) accelerators, targeting large and medium-sized data centers as its key differentiation.
• WRTN, an AI service platform, has raised $25 million in funding, bringing its total investment to $44 million. WRTN provides various AI portal services, including AI character chatbot creation, chat and studio tools, and plans to further enhance its offerings

#Trend Analysis

Five Startups Driving Korea’s AI Ecosystem

Artificial Intelligence (AI) remains the hottest trend in the investment market this year. According to data from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Korean startups in the AI field attracted 91.4 billion won (approximately $70 million) in investments during the first quarter, a staggering 345% increase compared to the same period last year. Mirroring global trends, the startups that have successfully secured substantial investments or are expected to garner significant funding in Korea are primarily focused on AI semiconductors and generative AI.
Five startups – Rebellions, Deepx, Furiosa AI, Upstage, and Rrtn Technologies – have emerged as the most sought-after investment targets in the Korean AI landscape. Most of these companies have raised over 100 billion won in funding and are experiencing rapid growth.

Data from Startuprecipe indicates that the average time between Series A and Series B funding rounds for these five companies is one year and eight months, while the average time to the next funding round is one year and four months. Given the recent downturn in the investment market, the ability of these companies to raise substantial funds in a relatively short period is a clear indication of strong investor interest.
Leading the pack is Rebellions, an AI chip maker that has secured 280 billion won (approximately $215 million) in funding and is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) less than four years after its inception. The company’s success is attributed to its AI semiconductor, which outperforms Nvidia’s GPUs in terms of speed. Furiosa AI, another AI semiconductor startup, recently unveiled its second-generation chip, Renegade, and is currently raising additional funds and preparing for an IPO.

Deepx, a developer of on-device AI semiconductors, is the most recent investment success story, with an eight-fold increase in valuation from its previous funding round. In the generative AI space, Upstage and Rrtn Technologies have been riding the investment wave since last year. Upstage, an AI startup, secured 100 billion won (approximately $77 million) in funding through oversubscription in April. The company is experiencing rapid growth as its pre-trained language model, Solar, gains recognition in the global market.
Rrtn Technologies, an AI portal service provider, has been growing at an impressive pace, with all of its investment rounds occurring within less than a year since its founding, including the latest pre-Series B investment.
While some industry observers point out that AI startups still need to demonstrate tangible results, such as actual sales, the global AI frenzy shows no signs of abating, and Korean AI startups are expected to continue their strong performance in the foreseeable future.