[Featured Stock] Company K, 'Meta AI' Launch Sparks Rising Expectations for Upstage Collaboration Endorsed by Zuckerberg

Company K is showing strength. The news that Meta is integrating ‘Meta AI’ into its SNS platforms such as Facebook and Instagram has highlighted investments in the Korean AI company Upstage, which Meta is paying attention to.

As of 9:29 AM on the 19th, Company K is trading at 6,870 KRW, up 3.93% from the previous day.

The day before, Meta announced that its AI chatbot ‘Meta AI’ would be available for free on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and other platforms. Meta AI is an AI chatbot competing fiercely with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Grok from Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI.

Meta AI is based on the latest AI model ‘LLaMA 3,’ which was also unveiled that day. ‘LLaMA 3’ was released in two versions: a small model with 8 billion parameters and a large model with 70 billion parameters. Parameters, which connect the neural pathways that generative AI uses to learn and remember information, are known to enhance AI performance as their number increases.

Meanwhile, Kim Seong-hoon, CEO of the Korean startup Upstage, has been gaining attention from Meta after meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, in February to share opinions from domestic AI companies regarding Meta’s large language model (LLM) ‘LLaMA.’

On the 15th (local time), Meta posted on its official blog an article titled ‘MathGPTL: A Highly Personalized Learning Platform Using LLaMA 2,’ which introduced Upstage’s case of creating a personalized learning platform using LLaMA 2.

Thanks to this, Upstage successfully raised about 100 billion KRW in a Series B funding round on the 16th. Many institutions, including SK Networks, KT, the Korea Development Bank, Shinhan Venture Investment, and Industrial Bank of Korea, joined as new investors. Existing investors such as SBVA (formerly SoftBank Ventures Asia), Company K Partners, and Premier Partners also made follow-up investments.

Previously, Company K led Upstage’s Series A investment round and is known to have invested about 10 billion KRW.