SoftBank’s early-stage VC arm joins $27m round of South Korean AI startup

SoftBank Ventures Asia, the early-stage VC arm of SoftBank Group, announced that it has participated in the US$27 million series A round of South Korea-based artificial intelligence startup VoyagerX. SoftBank Ventures, Altos Ventures, and Yellowdog invested US$9 million each in the round.

Sedong Nam, CEO of VoyagerX / Photo credit: VoyagerX

Founded in 2017, VoyagerX develops AI-based solutions to solve everyday problems. These include solutions such as vFlat, a mobile scanner app that analyzes curved surfaces of documents or books and scans them flat, and video-editing app Vrew. It also created Ownglyph, which converts a person’s handwriting into a personalized font.

According to the company, the fresh funds will be used to develop more user-centric AI services and boost its headcount with the aim to hire 100 people by 2022.

“We strongly believe in the transformative potential of AI and deep learning. Our mission is to cultivate the best AI talent and create innovative AI solutions to improve the lives of those around us,” said Sedong Nam, CEO of VoyagerX, in a statement. “We are very pleased that respected venture capitalists share our vision, including SoftBank Ventures Asia, and we look forward to taking on future challenges with their support.”

Worldwide, the expenditure on AI tech is expected to double to over US$110 billion by 2024 from US$50 billion in 2020, wrote an IDC report. This rapid development in AI tech and the increase in demand for digital solutions is a huge market opportunity, according to SoftBank Ventures Asia.

“We focus on investing in transformative technologies that can make a positive impact on people’s lives,” said JP Lee, CEO of SoftBank Ventures Asia. “Artificial intelligence falls firmly in that category, and VoyagerX, with its top-tier talent, creative innovation, and rapid time-to-market, have proven that it has the potential to be market leaders in this field.”