kaist
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Cuckoo
Cuckoo is a real-time AI interpreter built for global business conversations. Companies invite Cuckoo into Zoom calls or in-person meetings, and it delivers live translation across 20+ languages while learning each team's internal documents, glossaries, and jargon so technical sales, support, and marketing conversations don't lose meaning between languages. Founded in 2024 by KAIST alumni Yong Hee Lee and Gunwoo Kim, the company went through Y Combinator's Winter 2025 batch and raised a $1.8M seed round in 2025.
Mars Auto
Mars Auto is a South Korean AI company building self-driving Class 8 trucks for long-haul freight. Founded in 2017 by KAIST computer scientists Ilsu Park and Gyuri Im, it uses a vision-only, end-to-end AI driving agent - seven cameras and a single neural network, with no LiDAR and no HD maps - that can be retrofitted onto existing trucks. Mars Auto ran the first commercial long-haul autonomous freight in Korea in 2023 and began paid U.S. operations from a Texas base in 2024, aiming to deploy fully unmanned trucks by 2028.
Point2 Technology
Point2 Technology is a San Jose-based fabless semiconductor company building ultra-low-power, low-latency interconnect chips and cables for AI/ML data centers. Its e-Tube platform sends data as radio-frequency signals through plastic waveguides - a third path between copper and optics - and its smart-retimer SoCs power 800G and 1.6T active electrical cables. Founded in 2016 by a KAIST professor and veterans of Marvell, Finisar and Samsung, the company has drawn investment from NVIDIA's NVentures, Bosch Ventures, Molex and UMC.