Open Research, an artificial intelligence (AI) search service, announced on the 12th that it has secured seed (early-stage) investment. The total investment amounting to 10 billion KRW was led by LB Investment, Mirae Asset Capital, and Venture Capitalists, with Bon Angels Partners participating as a co-investor.
Open Research was established in July with the goal of creating "expert AI accessible to everyone," led by CEO Kim Il-du, who previously served as the head of Kakao Brain, Kakao's AI technology research and service subsidiary. CEO Kim led the development and commercialization of generative AI models at Kakao Brain, including the ultra-large language model KoGPT, the character-specialized image generation model Kalo, and the chest X-ray report generation model Kara. AI language model expert Director Baek Woon-hyuk, who oversaw the development of KoGPT, also joined Open Research.
Open Research focuses on specialized AI search for knowledge workers. The goal is to provide knowledge workers with an efficient information search experience by shortening the mechanical and repetitive search procedures that occur in web searches and reducing wasted time caused by query modifications and comparisons of various web resource information.
Unlike existing AI search services that provide limited information based on some web documents ranked high on search engines, Open Research plans to introduce an AI search service by the end of this year through a closed beta test (CBT) that offers near real-time, sophisticated answers and reports at the level users desire, achieved through technological differentiation in models and algorithms.
Park Ji-hyung, a senior executive at LB Investment, stated, "Various market institutions regard the search field as the area that will have the greatest impact in the generative AI era. As a team with outstanding modeling and engineering capabilities, we believe they are fully capable of creating a 'copilot for search' that will be accepted in the global market," explaining the reason for the investment.
CEO Kim said, "This investment has laid the foundation to realize Open Research's technical vision more quickly. We will accelerate the commercialization of the next-generation AI search service that allows anyone to instantly obtain expert-level answers through AI technology."
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