Superb AI, a South Korean AI startup graduated from Y Combinator, raised $10.2 million in a Series C funding round led by the corporate venture arm of South Korea’s oldest conglomerate , the 128-year-old Doosan Group.

Other participants in the funding round include new investors Hyundai Motor, Samsung Next, Kakao Investment and existing investors KT Investment and Premier Partners. Superb AI declined to disclose the valuation of the round. The startup’s new funding brings its total to date to approximately $37 million.

Superb AI co-founder and CEO Hyunsoo Kim, who was included in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2020, says the new funds will be used for general working capital purposes as they prepare for a public listing in South Korea in 2026.

Founded in 2018, Superb AI provides an end-to-end tool (from collecting, curating and labeling data to creating and deploying models) for businesses that want to use AI, especially AI. computer vision. The startup, which has offices in Seoul, San Mateo and Tokyo, says it has more than 100 clients, including Hyundai Motor, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, SK Telecom, Kakao, NCSoft, Toyota and Qualcomm.

Kim, who left a Ph.D. program in computer science at Duke University, sees synergies with its Series C investors, particularly in the manufacturing sector. “For example, many mechanical parts enter factories. Currently, workers manually inspect these parts to see if they are moving properly or if there are cracks,” Kim explains in a video interview. “And it’s very inefficient, inaccurate and costly.” So we can automate a lot of this process.

Doosan Investments, Superb AI’s Series C lead investor, is part of a conglomerate that also makes nuclear power plant components (Doosan Enerbility), construction equipment (Doosan Bobcat), hydrogen-powered drones ( Doosan Mobility Innovation) and collaborative robots (Doosan Robotics—South Korea’s largest robotic weapons maker by sales (which went public in 2023, raising $312 million in what was the largest IPO in country’s stock market that year).

Hyundai Motor, owned by billionaire Euisun Chung, makes cars and its subsidiary Boston Dynamics develops robots. Kim says Superb AI’s software could also help with Hyundai Motor’s autonomous driving efforts. Samsung makes smartphones, televisions, home appliances and semiconductor chips. The conglomerate, controlled by billionaire Jay Y. Lee, has increased its stake in South Korean robot maker Rainbow Robotics. Kim adds that Superb AI can also help create AI for Samsung’s smartphones.

KT Investment, the corporate venture arm of South Korean telecommunications operator KT, has been investing in Superb AI since its funding round in 2019. Kim says Superb AI is looking to work with KT to add AI capabilities to its offerings corporate network and use its cloud. IT department to create AI models for businesses.

Next month, Superb AI plans to launch an on-premises version of its AI tools that does not require a network connection to a cloud. “Many companies in the manufacturing, defense and surveillance sectors cannot use cloud services due to security risks,” says Kim. Superb AI plans to use Nvidia’s popular GPU chips to train its models on-site. But to deploy the models, it is considering Nvidia’s Jetson or chips from domestic company Rebellions (also backed by KT).

ForbesKorea’s best-funded AI semiconductor startup aims to take on Nvidia with chips made by SamsungBy John Kang

Superb AI is the latest AI-related startup from South Korea’s semiconductor hub to raise funds even as venture capital deals slow globally. In July, Rebellions raised $15 million in a Series B expansion round from Wa’ed Ventures, the venture capital arm of Saudi state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco. In May, chipmaker DeepX raised $80 million in Series C funding led by Skylake Equity Partners, a South Korean private equity firm founded and led by Chin Dae-je, a former Samsung Electronics executive.

Trillion Labs, which is building a Korean-language large-format model, raised $4.2 million in pre-seed funding led by Strong Ventures earlier this month. Linq, which uses AI to help hedge funds accelerate their research into listed companies, raised $6.6 million in a seed funding round led by Atinum in June. And Upstage, which aims to help companies develop large, language-specific language models, raised $72 million in a Series B funding round led by SK Networks, the de facto AI investment arm of the SK group of billionaire Chey Tae-won.

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