# Tim Jung

> Tim Jung is the Founder and CEO of XL8.ai, a San Jose-based AI company building the world's most accurate machine translation engine for media and entertainment. A Columbia University PhD and former Google tech lead, Jung left a career launching NLP search features to solve a problem he saw up close: the media industry's broken localization pipeline. XL8 has since translated 800,000+ hours of content across 45+ languages, raised $11.5M including a $7.5M Series A led by KB Investment, and built a platform where AI doesn't replace human translators but makes them dramatically faster.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at XL8.ai
- **Organizations:** XL8.ai, Google, Samsung Electronics, Columbia University, AGCC (Advisor)
- **From:** South Korea
- **Nationality:** Korean-American
- **Education:** PhD in Computer Science, Columbia University
- **Known for:** Founded XL8.ai in 2019, growing it to translate 800,000+ hours of content and 2.2 billion+ words across 45+ languages, Built MT engine with 40% higher accuracy than general-purpose competitors for media content, Raised $11.5M total funding including $7.5M Series A led by KB Investment

## Career timeline

- **Early 1990s** — As a child in Korea, dismantled rotary phones and built a makeshift joystick from a phone numeric keypad
- **~2012** — Won Best Paper Award at CloudCom 2012 for research on optimizing computation distribution across heterogeneous devices
- **~2008-2013** — Completed PhD in Computer Science at Columbia University
- **~2013** — Served in South Korean Army as a Communication Officer
- **~2013-2015** — Led UI Framework team at Samsung Electronics; launched Tizen, a Linux-based mobile platform
- **~2015-2019** — Staff Software Engineer and Tech Lead/Manager at Google; launched Events Search, Events in Knowledge Graph, Google Maps events integration, and Personal Search
- **2019** — Founded XL8.ai with CTO Jay Park (former Apple senior engineer)
- **2022** — Raised $3M Pre-Series A Bridge round; launched MediaCAT platform
- **2023-07** — XL8 acquired AHT (American High-Tech Transcription)
- **2023-09** — Closed $7.5M Series A led by KB Investment, bringing total raised to $11.5M
- **2023-11** — Represented Korean entrepreneurs at COMEUP 2023 in Seoul (event hosted by President of Korea); XL8's EventCAT powered live interpretation for the startup festival at Dongdaemun Design Plaza

## Achievements

- Founded XL8.ai in 2019, growing it to translate 800,000+ hours of content and 2.2 billion+ words across 45+ languages
- Built MT engine with 40% higher accuracy than general-purpose competitors for media content
- Raised $11.5M total funding including $7.5M Series A led by KB Investment
- Won Best Paper Award at CloudCom 2012 for distributed computing research
- Led NLP launches at Google including Events Search and Personal Search
- Co-led Tizen mobile OS launch at Samsung Electronics
- Represented next-generation Korean entrepreneurs before the President of South Korea at COMEUP 2023
- Expanded XL8 into UK, Turkey, UAE markets and serves clients from 70+ countries
- Acquired AHT (American High-Tech Transcription) to strengthen media localization capabilities

## Latest updates

- **2023-11** — Tim Jung spoke at COMEUP 2023 in Seoul on 'How should AI startups survive in the age of ChatGPT?'; XL8's EventCAT powered live interpretation at the conference
- **2023-09** — XL8 closed $7.5M Series A round led by KB Investment, bringing total raised to $11.5M
- **2023-07** — XL8 acquired American High-Tech Transcription (AHT)
- **2023-01** — XL8 expanded into UK, Turkey, and UAE markets

## Links

- Website: https://xl8.ai
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/timyj
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/xl8_inc?lang=en
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/xl8.inc/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/tim-jung
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-13