Korea's First Generative AI Unicorn Emerges... Upstage Secures 180 Billion Won Investment

Series C First Round Closes at 180 Billion Won
Total Investment Reaches 400 Billion Won, Corporate Value Recognized Over 1 Trillion Won
Hyundai Motor, Kia, and Others Join as New Investors

Upstage has become the first generative AI company in Korea to join the ranks of unicorns, as its corporate value has been recognized at over 1 trillion won.

Upstage announced on the 15th that it has completed the first round of its Series C funding, totaling 180 billion won.

Upstage announced on the 15th that it has completed the first round of its Series C investment totaling 180 billion won. Upstage

This round was led by Sazze Partners, a global venture capital (VC) firm based in Silicon Valley. Sazze Partners has been an early investor that continued follow-on investments throughout all previous rounds.

Major institutional investors such as Premier Partners, Shinhan Venture Investment, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, KB Securities, and Intervest also joined as follow-on investors. Global investment firms including Axiom Asia, as well as Hyundai Motor Company and Kia, and Woori Venture Partners, participated as new investors.

Upstage has continued its growth by providing industry-specific AI solutions based on its proprietary large language model (LLM) "Solar" and document processing AI "DocumentParse," achieving more than 130% annual revenue growth. Last year, the company was selected as the lead operator for the "Dokpamo" project, an independent foundation model initiative overseen by the Ministry of Science and ICT and often referred to as Korea's national AI. The second round of evaluation for this project is scheduled for August.

With the first closing of Series C, Upstage's total accumulated investment has expanded to approximately 400 billion won. Since its founding in 2020, Upstage has attracted investment in every round, starting with seed funding, Series A (31.6 billion won) in 2021, Series B (100 billion won) in 2024, and a Series B bridge round (62 billion won) in 2025.

Upstage plans to use the large-scale capital secured from this round to: ▲expand GPU infrastructure for the advancement of AI models such as the Dokpamo project; ▲recruit outstanding talent both domestically and internationally; and ▲pioneer overseas markets, including the United States and Japan.

Seonghoon Kim, CEO of Upstage, said, "This investment is more than just a capital raise; it demonstrates the market's confidence in Upstage's journey and achievements as Korea's leading AI developer. We aim to further advance our proprietary AI models to be competitive not only in Korea but also globally, proving our value through revenue, not just corporate valuation."

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