GraphAI, a specialized Korean vector database solution company, announced today that it has secured 3 billion KRW (2.3 million USD) in a pre-Series A funding round. Participating investors include We Ventures, Timeworks Investment, Kiwoom Investment, and QUAD Ventures, bringing the company’s total accumulated investment to 3.6 billion KRW.

Founded in 2022 by Professor Min-su Kim of KAIST’s Department of Computer Science, a globally recognized researcher in databases, GPU computing, and AI, GraphAI is a deep tech graph AI company. Building on his previous experience developing commercial DBMS engines at IBM, Professor Kim is focused on developing innovative database and AI technologies that can complement generative AI.

GraphAI highlights a high level of technological prowess, with its team primarily composed of master’s and doctoral graduates from prestigious domestic and international universities, excluding administrative staff. This excellence has been recognized through selections for government-backed programs such as TIPS (Tech Incubator Program for Startup) and DIPS 1000+.

One of the company’s products, “GraphOn,” is a graph relational database system (GRDBMS) that can convert, manage, and query relational databases as graph databases. With its dual-store technology, GraphOn offers query processing performance that is hundreds of times faster than conventional systems. This technology has received academic recognition after being accepted for presentation at the VLDB 2025 conference, one of the world’s most prestigious academic conferences in the database field.

The company is also developing a world-class vector database engine, aiming for the highest performance in the vector DB field, which is gaining importance in generative AI and robotics. This engine, without requiring specialized semiconductor chips, offers significantly faster search speed, higher search accuracy, and faster build times compared to existing products, while providing a rich set of search functions necessary for various applications. The company plans to accelerate the development of this vector DB engine, which is scheduled for release in the first half of next year, using the funds from this investment.

Min-su Kim, CEO of GraphAI, said, “We are pleased to have successfully completed the pre-A funding round, and we have confirmed that the market demand for vector databases is growing faster than expected. We plan to actively target both domestic and international markets with our ultra-high-performance vector DB engine, which is scheduled for release in the first half of next year.”