Investment Exceeding 10 Billion Won... AI Startup's Rapid Growth Draws Attention

Increase in AI Startups Securing Investment Amounts Over 10 Billion Won

As domestic artificial intelligence (AI) startups experience rapid growth, there is increasing attention on cases where they have attracted cumulative investments exceeding 10 billion KRW by gaining recognition for their technology. Photo by Getty Images

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] As domestic artificial intelligence (AI) startups experience rapid growth, cases of companies attracting cumulative investments exceeding 10 billion KRW are increasing, drawing attention.

According to the industry on the 4th, these companies share the commonality of being 'real-life AI service companies' that penetrate everyday life, capturing attention by shaking not only the industrial sector but also the capital market.

Visual Call App ‘VITO’ by ReturnZero Raises 19.8 Billion KRW in Cumulative Investment

ReturnZero, a voice recognition company operating the AI call service VITO, secured 16 billion KRW in Series B funding last July from KTB Network, Atinum Investment, Hana Ventures, Company K Partners, and angel investors, bringing its total cumulative investment to 19.8 billion KRW.

Based on innovative technology, the company has solidified its position in the domestic voice recognition AI industry. It was co-founded by three KAIST classmates who were also early members of Kakao. VITO, known for tackling the notoriously difficult Korean language, achieved highly accurate text conversion of call voices and recently expanded into the Chinese market, opening new possibilities.

VITO is recognized for realizing a new AI call life by integrating into the daily lives of not only businessmen who frequently handle calls but also ordinary people and the hearing impaired. In August, it became the first in Korea to develop technology that detects not only human voices but also ARS sounds. Furthermore, it continues to accelerate service updates by consistently enhancing features, including accuracy and speaker separation.

A VITO representative stated, "Through steady acquisition and processing of voice data, we will establish an innovative position not only in AI calls but also in the vast voice recognition market."

AI Personalized Shopping Recommendation Service ‘Pixel’ Secures 10 Billion KRW Investment

OddConcept, which operates the AI product recommendation service ‘Pixel (PXL)’, is leading technological activation by achieving overwhelming results in the fashion AI commerce market. ‘Pixel (PXL)’, specialized in the fashion sector, utilizes vision AI technology that recognizes and analyzes product images as if seen by the human eye. It enables personalized product recommendations by easily finding styles and coordinates that users want in an online environment.

‘Pixel (PXL)’ has attracted cumulative investments amounting to approximately 10 billion KRW. Investors include KB Securities, Shinhan Capital-Kiwoom Investment, Korea Development Bank, and SBI Investment. Among them, two Japanese investors are also involved, including SBI Investment. OddConcept plans to focus on service advancement based on intellectual property such as 106 domestic and international patent applications and registrations and trademarks across 11 countries.

VoyagerX, Developer of AI Video Editing ‘Brew’ and AI Mobile Scanner ‘VFlat’, Raises 30 Billion KRW Investment

Founded in 2017, AI startup VoyagerX received 30 billion KRW in its first funding round, Series A, last June, recognizing its technological level. SoftBank Ventures, Altos Ventures, and Yellowdog each invested 10 billion KRW.

VoyagerX set its mission as ‘widely benefiting people through AI’ and has consecutively launched AI-related services since its establishment. First, the video editing service ‘Brew’ uses automatic speech-to-text technology to convert recognized speech into subtitles when a video is input. It automatically removes ‘silent sections’ without speech, which are considered meaningless parts, from the video. This automates the time-consuming ‘cut editing’ (cutting only necessary parts of a video) with AI, reducing editing time.

Another flagship service, ‘VFlat’, is an AI mobile scanner app. It analyzes the curvature of documents or books with AI to scan the content flatly. It also removes shadows and various noises generated during document shooting, producing clean digital documents. It already has over one million global users. Released last year, ‘Ongleap’ is an AI-based handwritten font generation service. AI analyzes a few characters written by a person and provides a similar font for all 11,172 characters.

Lee Yeon-gyu, director at Company K Partners, an investment firm, said, “A common trait of AI companies with solid technology is that the more data they accumulate, the smarter they evolve, achieving exponential growth. Since AI technology-based services form a pillar of the changing world not only domestically but also in overseas markets, the growth of related companies is highly anticipated.”