Korean AI inference platform company FriendliAI announced that it has completed an investment round totaling USD 20 million (KRW 27.5 billion). The investment was led by Capstone Partners, with follow-on investment from KB Securities, and new investors including Silicon Valley venture capital firms Sierra Ventures and Alumni Ventures, along with Korea Development Bank (KDB).

This investment comes at a time of explosive growth in the AI inference market. FriendliAI has established itself as a key player by providing high-performance and cost-efficient inference solutions to companies deploying large-scale AI.

FriendliAI’s platform is actively used by companies to solve key challenges faced when deploying large-scale AI models, such as high infrastructure costs, inference speed affecting user experience, and the complexity of model operation and management.

FriendliAI’s solution offers the market’s fastest language model and multimodal model inference performance while reducing GPU costs by over 50%, making it easier for organizations to deploy and scale AI applications in their operating environments. Additionally, FriendliAI provides a unique container-based deployment method that can be used in air-gapped environments, enabling companies to easily implement production-grade inference in their in-house environments.

“According to IBM Research, up to 90% of AI model costs are incurred in the inference stage. FriendliAI has demonstrated exceptional technological innovation in the field of AI inference,” said Eun-gang Song, Partner at Capstone Partners. “Their platform, which provides excellent performance while reducing costs, is an ideal partner for companies looking to scale their AI operations. We are very pleased to lead this round.”

The company plans to use the investment to expand its sales and marketing teams to accelerate customer acquisition and to scale its infrastructure to support new customers. FriendliAI will also invest in product development, platform enhancements, and new partnerships with key technology providers.

FriendliAI recently signed a strategic partnership with LG AI Research, becoming the sole service provider offering LG’s EXAONE language model in API form, which proves FriendliAI’s unique technological prowess and market leadership. Scatter Lab, a leading AI character chat platform company in Korea, has already adopted FriendliAI’s platform for its Zeta service operations, significantly reducing infrastructure costs. Upstage has also achieved top-tier performance and efficiency by running its Solar model on FriendliAI.

“FriendliAI precisely represents the infrastructure innovation needed to support the adoption of next-generation AI,” commented Ben Yu, Partner at Sierra Ventures. “Their continued growth demonstrates strong market demand for efficient and scalable AI inference solutions.”

“As more organizations transition from AI experiments to actual operational deployment, the AI inference market is experiencing explosive growth,” said Byung-gon Jeon, CEO and co-founder of FriendliAI. “This investment provides a stepping stone to seize the enormous opportunities ahead. We are excited to partner with Capstone Partners and our new investors to expand our platform and provide even greater value to our customers.”