Pre-Unicorn Liner: "AI Hallucination Rate at 4%... Source Means Trust"

Selected as a Pre-Unicorn by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups in September, Liner
Evolving from a Web Highlighter to an AI Search Service
"20 Billion KRW in Special Technology Guarantees to Be Invested in R&D and Distribution"

"What Liner aims to achieve is innovation in information exploration."

On October 31, Jinwoo Kim, CEO of the artificial intelligence (AI) search and deep research service 'Liner (LINER)', recalled the company's early days and made this statement. Liner began in 2015 in Silicon Valley as a browser extension that allowed users to highlight sentences on the web, much like using a highlighter. CEO Kim and co-founder Woo Chanmin, Chief Operating Officer (COO), developed the service out of the question, "Wouldn't it be possible to mark important content or filter only useful information when reading online?" The name 'Liner' was chosen for this reason.

Jinwoo Kim, CEO of Rainer. Rainer

However, CEO Kim's vision extended beyond the simple 'sentence highlighting' function. He believed that if people marked important information on the internet, it would eventually be possible to refine online information using this data. By 2019, monthly active users (MAU) reached 300,000, providing a foundation to attempt data-driven services. From that point, Liner began offering personalized search and recommendation services based on highlight data, and in 2023, pivoted to an AI search service. After a series of innovations, the company secured a Series B2 investment of 27 billion KRW (approximately 20 million USD) in November last year, and in September this year, was selected as one of the 15 'pre-unicorn' companies by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.

Blocking AI Hallucinations with Sources

The core technology was 'Ranker'-a system developed to filter out information worth reading. CEO Jinwoo Kim explained, "It is a technology that scores documents with highlights, bookmarked documents, and documents read by many users, then selects and retrieves those with high scores." The advent of large language model (LLM) technology in 2022 became a turning point for Liner. Kim recalled, "I thought that by combining Ranker with LLM, we could create an AI capable of providing high-quality, personalized answers."

Liner particularly differentiates itself from other AI search services through its source-based reliability. Liner provides a source for every sentence generated by AI, resulting in a hallucination rate as low as 4%. CEO Kim emphasized, "Liner initially targeted American college students, graduate students, and researchers who always value sources when writing academic papers. Our goal is not to make people blindly trust AI's answers, but to build trust by presenting credible sources."

AI Agent 'Peer Review'. Rhyner

Recently, Liner has strengthened its academic-focused service competitiveness by introducing the 'Research Agent' feature, which consists of eight AI agents. The main function, 'Research Tracer,' tracks and visualizes the development of key research papers, while 'Peer Review' allows users to upload draft papers and receive improvement suggestions from five AI agents. The goal is for AI to understand and evaluate the context of research papers, thereby delivering tangible productivity gains to users.

Securing 20 Billion KRW in Technology Guarantees... Dual Track for R&D and Distribution

With its selection as a pre-unicorn, Liner has secured up to 20 billion KRW (approximately 15 million USD) in special technology guarantees and is now embarking on full-scale scaling up. This funding, like the previous Series B2 investment, will be focused on research and development (R&D) and distribution strategies. CEO Kim stated, "Since search is the core of Liner, we will focus on improving accuracy and speed, as well as developing models that can handle more complex queries."

AI Search Service Screen. Liner

Liner is also working to strengthen its distribution strategy. In March last year, Liner ranked fourth globally in the web service category of the 'Top 100 Generative AI Consumer Apps' announced by global venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, gaining significant recognition among overseas users. However, further market expansion is still needed in Korea. CEO Kim said, "We plan to expand our subscription services through partnerships with companies such as BC Card, SK Telecom, and LG Uplus, and to target the Korean, US, and Japanese markets through marketing using graduate student influencers and social networking services (SNS)."

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