Korea’s AI sector is entering a pivotal transition — one defined not by scale, but by technological sovereignty. Persona AI’s latest pre-IPO investment round, backed by defense and institutional capital, underscores how domestic innovation is converging with national strategy to secure Korea’s position in the global Physical AI landscape.

Persona AI Secures Pre-IPO Investment from Top Defense and Tech Funds

Persona AI (CEO Yoo Seung-jae) has secured approximately KRW 12 billion (USD 9 million) in a pre-IPO investment, bringing its total cumulative funding to about KRW 41 billion (USD 30 million).

The investors include LIG Nex1 and IBK Capital, co-managing the Defense Innovation Fund; DB Technology Investment, the CVC arm of DB HiTek; HB Investment; and AIM Investment. This combination of defense, semiconductor, and venture capital participation highlights the growing recognition of AI as a dual-use technology — spanning both industrial and national security applications.

Persona AI plans to proceed with its initial public offering (IPO) this year, working with Mirae Asset Securities as its lead underwriter to begin the formal technical evaluation process.

Background: Sovereign AI and the Physical AI Frontier

Persona AI is one of Korea’s few startups positioned at the intersection of Sovereign AI and Physical AI — an emerging field that integrates language, vision, and action into real-world applications.

The company’s proprietary engine, SONA, enables AI operations without internet access or GPU dependency, making it viable for on-device (Edge AI) deployment across PCs, servers, and hardware. This feature places Persona AI at the forefront of Physical AI systems, where models must interact seamlessly with physical environments while maintaining efficiency and security.

Persona AI’s broader technological ecosystem includes:

• STT — a speech recognition engine trained on millions of hours of Korean voice data, covering diverse dialects.
• sLLM — a small-scale generative model optimized for edge computation.
• VLA (Vision-Language-Action) — its experimental Physical AI framework enabling multimodal interaction between perception, reasoning, and action.

These technologies have earned Persona AI two consecutive CES Innovation Awards, solidifying its reputation as one of the few Korean startups with exportable core AI infrastructure.

Raising Korea as Top Global AI Powerhouse

Persona AI representatives emphasized their commitment to international expansion and Korea’s AI sovereignty. The company stated,

“We are determined to take on the global market and raise Korea’s profile as a nation that excels in AI.”

The statement reflects a broader narrative emerging across Korea’s tech ecosystem — that Sovereign AI is not only about innovation but about ensuring technological independence in an era where data localization, algorithmic bias, and hardware constraints are shaping national strategies.

Korea’s AI Maturity and Investor Realignment

The participation of defense-linked funds and semiconductor CVCs signals a shift in Korea’s AI investment landscape. For years, domestic AI funding focused on software and platform startups. Now, the investment focus is moving toward core technology developers capable of powering sovereign, industrial, and defense AI infrastructure.

Persona AI’s inclusion in the Ministry of SMEs and Startups’ (MSS) Pre-Unicorn Program in 2025, alongside its recognition with the Order of Industrial Service Merit (Stone Tower), shows how Korea’s policy and capital ecosystems are aligning. The government’s performance-linked guarantee model encourages growth through milestone-based funding, rewarding startups that prove commercial scalability — exactly the trajectory Persona AI is following.

Within this framework, Persona AI’s pre-IPO success is not only a company milestone but a sign that Korea’s startup ecosystem is maturing from app-driven innovation to deeptech industrial capacity.

Industry observers note parallels to Upstage, another Korean AI startup advancing large language models for local deployment, though Persona AI differentiates itself through edge-based generative AI and physical integration.

Toward an AI Ecosystem Anchored in Sovereignty

Persona AI’s trajectory reflects Korea’s ambition to move beyond AI adoption toward AI authorship — developing models, datasets, and systems that reflect its own linguistic, industrial, and cultural identity.

Its technological achievements — including SONA’s offline capabilities and VLA’s edge adaptability — position the company as a potential bridge between industrial AI, defense applications, and consumer-scale deployment.

For global investors and partners, Persona AI represents an early case study in how Sovereign AI ecosystems can thrive when capital, policy, and innovation are strategically aligned.

Key Takeaways on Persona AI Pre-IPO Funding

• Investment: Persona AI raised KRW 12 billion pre-IPO, total funding KRW 41 billion.
• Investors: LIG Nex1, IBK Capital, DB Technology Investment, HB Investment, AIM Investment.
• Technology Focus: Offline-capable SONA AI engine, Edge AI, Physical AI (VLA), speech and sLLM models.
• Achievements: Two-time CES Innovation Award winner; Pre-Unicorn selection by MSS; Order of Industrial Service Merit recipient.
• Ecosystem Impact: Aligns with Korea’s national focus on Sovereign AI; reflects investor pivot toward core AI infrastructure and defense-linked innovation.
• IPO Outlook: Preparing for KOSDAQ listing in collaboration with Mirae Asset Securities.

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