Kakao Ventures "Focus on Enterprise AI Startups... Expanding Investment Opportunities in the US"

Kakao Ventures Introduces Some Technology, Runbear, and Wadle

"Globally, companies are adopting artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to enhance work productivity, but from an investor's perspective, there is uncertainty about which AI startups to invest in." "We are looking for enterprise AI solutions that deliver tangible business impact."

This is the concern and answer of Kakao Ventures (KV) regarding AI startup investment. On the 18th, KV held a brown bag meeting at Maru360 in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, under the theme 'AI Investment from KV’s Perspective, the Path for Companies to Properly Utilize AI,' sharing this AI investment direction. The brown bag meeting is an event organized to introduce startups invested in by KV and provide opportunities for networking.

Shin Jeong-ho, Senior Investment Manager at Kakao Ventures (KV), is giving a presentation at the KV Brown Bag Meeting held on the 18th at Maru360 in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
[Photo by Kakao Ventures]

On this day, Shin Jeong-ho, Senior Investment Manager at KV, introduced the causes of difficulties companies face in utilizing AI solutions. He said, "The gap between the user's original concept and the AI-generated output, insufficient data, and delays in feedback exchange with developers are the causes," and emphasized, "Even if it is an AI solution specialized for a specific company, business-to-business(B2B) AI solutions encounter various security and data issues. From the user company's perspective, there are many cases where feedback with developers is not exchanged promptly due to a lack of understanding of how to utilize AI," he stressed.

Senior Investment Manager Shin stated, "We are looking for enterprise AI solutions that deliver real business impact." When investing in AI startups, the main considerations include ▲an appropriate balance between existing work methods and AI-friendly approaches ▲data acquisition through understanding work styles ▲and the ability to quickly improve the solution.

Along with this, he introduced three representative startups recently invested in as a result of over a decade of AI investment. 'Some Technology,' which received seed (early-stage) investment in 2021, develops solutions that record and analyze internal text and voice data of companies to improve work efficiency and customer understanding. Jung Jae-won, CEO of Some Technology, said, "We focus on the information overload and disconnection phenomena in corporate communication. Some Technology's solution maximizes sales efficiency," adding, "Through AI technology, it can capture sales opportunities and automate customer relationship management (CRM) updates. It also enables sales strategy formulation through conversation analysis."

'Runbear,' which received seed investment from KV last year, supports companies in easily adopting AI and integrating it into existing work tools. Hwang Ho-sung, CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of Runbear, said, "Even if customers easily build personalized AI, if it is not integrated into existing work tools, it cannot be properly utilized," adding, "Through Runbear’s solution, Plugbear, customized large language model (LLM) apps can be easily integrated into communication channels. This shortens AI integration time by several weeks and significantly reduces the time and cost required for operation."

Hwang Hoseong, CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of Runbear, is introducing Runbear at the KV Brown Bag Meeting held on the 18th at Maru360 in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
[Photo by Kakao Ventures]

This year’s seed investment recipient 'Wadle' introduced 'Zentu,' an AI clerk solution that converses with customers like a veteran clerk to improve the purchasing experience. Park Ji-hyuk, CEO of Wadle, said, "The concern of e-commerce companies is user churn. Only 9% of users who enter the platform proceed to the payment stage, and most drop out," adding, "Especially during the search process, there is significant dropout when users try to find desired products."

He continued, "The Zentu solution continuously converses with consumers to sell products and can improve performance by continuously learning from this process," adding, "From the perspective of e-commerce clients, it allows understanding of customer consumption tendencies based on conversation history. It is a solution that internal corporate staff such as marketers can use routinely."

Senior Investment Manager Shin added, "KV is actively capturing AI investment opportunities not only in Korea but also in the United States. We are increasing long-term investments while meeting various local prospective entrepreneurs," and added, "We are growing together with startups invested in after seed investment."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.