Upstage secures NVIDIA investment, accelerating upgrades to ‘Solar’

[Financial News] South Korean artificial intelligence (AI) company Upstage is set to receive investment from global semiconductor company NVIDIA. With NVIDIA joining Amazon and AMD as investors, Upstage is expected to pick up the pace in developing its own AI models and expanding into overseas markets.
According to industry sources on the 9th, NVIDIA is expected to participate in the second round of Upstage’s ongoing Series C investment. The specific size of the investment has not been disclosed.
Earlier, Upstage completed the first tranche of its Series C funding, worth 180 billion won, in April and was valued at 1 trillion won or more. This made it the first South Korean generative AI company to attain unicorn status with a valuation of at least 1 trillion won.
Upstage is accelerating its push into the global AI market, leading with its self-developed large language models (LLMs), Solar Pro 4 and Solar Mini 4. The two models were the first South Korean AI models to rank among the top in token usage for closed models on the global developer platform OpenRouter.
Upstage plans to use funds raised through this Series C investment round to further develop its own AI models, recruit key talent in South Korea and abroad, and expand into overseas markets such as the United States and Japan. Its strategy is to strengthen its competitiveness in the global market by improving the performance and cost efficiency of its AI models.
“Using this upcoming investment as a springboard, we will further strengthen the competitiveness of our own AI models and grow into an AI company that leads the global market,” said Upstage CEO Kim Seong-hun.
[email protected] Jang Min-kwon Reporter