Highlights:

  • Upstage provides a document processing engine and a large solar language model that is customizable for e-commerce, healthcare, finance, and legal sectors by enterprise clients.
  • Upstage’s Solar LLM can be deployed on-premises or integrated via APIs through platforms like Amazon SageMaker JumpStart.

Recently, an artificial intelligence startup that creates large language models for document processing, Upstage Co. Ltd., has secured USD 72 million to enhance its capabilities.

Upstage Co. Ltd.’s Series B funding round has significantly increased the company’s total investments, nearly tripling the amount raised in 2021 to a cumulative total of USD 100 million. This round drew contributions from new investors such as Korea Development Bank, Shinhan Venture Investment Co., Hana Ventures, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, and IBK Securities. Existing investors, including Company K Partners, Primer Sazze, SBVA (previously SoftBank Ventures Asia), and Premier Partners, also participated.

Upstage provides a document processing engine alongside Solar, a large language model that can be customized for specific applications in e-commerce, healthcare, finance, and legal sectors by enterprise clients. Together, these products enable customers to efficiently scan both physical and digital documents and interact with them using natural, conversational language to ask questions.

Upstage’s “Document AI” solution incorporates optical character recognition (OCR) technology to swiftly digitize and interpret both typed and handwritten documents for information extraction. The company claims a 99% accuracy rate in classification, capable of identifying text, graphs, and checkboxes, regardless of the document’s condition—whether it’s rotated, slanted, or wrinkled.

This capability makes it ideal for processing boxes or reams of physical documents that have been stored in warehouses and require digitization. Additionally, it can efficiently handle survey materials featuring illegible handwriting, or “chicken scratches,” from employees or customers at conferences, the company notes.

Sung Kim, Co-founder and CEO of Upstage, pointed to the company’s success in South Korea as a strong foundation for timely fundraising, which aims to fuel global expansion, starting with the launch of a new office in San Jose, California.

Sung Kim, Co-founder and CEO of Upstage, pointed to the company’s success in South Korea as a strong foundation for timely fundraising, which aims to fuel global expansion, beginning with the opening of a new office in San Jose, California. Kim said, “This funding will help us build the world’s best generative AI model and deliver the ultimate ‘AGI for work’ solution to businesses worldwide.”

Upstage’s Solar LLM can be deployed on-premises or integrated via application programming interfaces through platforms like Amazon SageMaker JumpStart. The company has crafted Solar to offer a user-friendly alternative to the larger, more complex, and resource-intensive models produced by major tech firms.

The company reported strong demand for its solution in rapidly growing sectors like finance and healthcare. Notable clients of Upstage include Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and the South Korean business conglomerate Hanwha Group.