korean-startup
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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.
Liner
Liner is an AI search engine built for students, researchers, and knowledge workers who need answers they can trust. Founded in 2012 as a web highlighter and rebuilt around large language models after GPT-3, the company now serves roughly 12 million monthly users across more than 200 countries, pairing conversational answers with transparent citations from academic papers and vetted sources. Headquartered in San Francisco with roots in Seoul, Liner positions itself as a source-grounded alternative to general chatbots and to Google's search box.
Aram Hong
Aram Hong is the CEO and co-founder of Apollon, a Seoul-born, Cambridge-based medtech company building MOGLU, a needle-free continuous glucose monitor powered by Raman spectroscopy. A former EY advisor and Genoplan executive who moved his family from Seoul to Boston to scale the company alongside MIT researchers, Hong has turned a laser-and-optics idea into a CES 2025 Innovation Award honoree that, in peer-reviewed clinical testing, matched the accuracy of leading needle-based sensors from Abbott and Dexcom.
Luke Kim
Luke Jinu Kim is the Founder and CEO of Liner, a San Francisco-based AI search engine used by over 12 million people across 220+ countries. Starting with $50,000 in seed money and a month on a Silicon Valley Airbnb, he turned a Chrome highlighter into the world's #2 AI search product — ranked four consecutive times on a16z's Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps list, with 2024 revenue up 341% year-over-year and $32M raised to date, including a $29M Series B backed by Samsung Venture Investment.