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NVIDIA has decided to make equity investments in three domestic artificial intelligence (AI) startups: Upstage, Motif Technologies, and RealWorld. This is seen as a move not only to solidify its position within the domestic AI industry ecosystem but also to secure an early foothold in the physical AI market.
According to industry sources on the 9th, NVIDIA announced this at the 'Ministry of Science and ICT-NVIDIA AI Startup Partnership Forum' held that day at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The event was chaired by Ryu Je-myung, Second Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, and brought together more than 20 domestic AI startups.
Upstage is an AI startup developing the 'Solar' series of large language models (LLMs). In April, it secured a Series C first-round investment of 180 billion won, pushing its corporate valuation past 1 trillion won. It is currently raising additional investment at the same corporate valuation (within the same round).
Motif Technologies is also an LLM developer. The company has developed the 'Motif' series of LLMs, differentiating itself through open weights, which disclose the parameter values of neural networks generated during model training. It raised 24 billion won in Series B funding last May and now plans to receive additional investment from existing investors alongside NVIDIA.
RealWorld is a physical AI startup developing robot foundation models (RFMs) for robotic implementation. RealWorld is reportedly raising 200 billion won at a corporate valuation of 1 trillion won (on a pre-money basis). At 'NVIDIA AI Day Seoul 2026' on the same day, NVIDIA also announced collaboration details with RealWorld regarding the evaluation of robot object manipulation capabilities.
Previously, NVIDIA invested in domestic startup Point2 Technologies in April this year. Point2 is a startup developing radio frequency (RF)-based interconnects for transmitting data between chips and racks in AI factories.
However, specific investment amounts by NVIDIA were not disclosed. An NVIDIA official stated, "We have supported more than 1,000 domestic startups through 'NVIDIA Inception,' our startup growth support program," adding, "This investment plan is being pursued based on the cooperation NVIDIA has maintained with the domestic startup and venture ecosystem."
[Money Today Startup Media Platform Unicorn Factory]
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