SKAI Intelligence Valued at KRW 100 Billion in Series A Extension for Physical AI Data Infrastructure

SKAI Intelligence, a Korean startup building digital twin and synthetic data infrastructure for Physical AI, has closed an extension to its Series A round at a valuation of approximately KRW 100 billion (around $72 million), the company announced on July 13.

The investment came from the Oracle-Vector Regional Innovation Venture Fund, co-managed by Weup Investment—a new technology project finance firm—and Oracle Venture Investment. The funding amount was not disclosed. SKAI Intelligence had previously raised Series A backing from DS Investment Partners, and this extension reaffirms the company’s position as a frontrunner in the emerging Physical AI data infrastructure market.

The round reflects growing investor conviction that digital twin and synthetic data platforms are critical enablers for Physical AI adoption across manufacturing. Investors cited SKAI Intelligence’s combination of industrial-grade digital twin technology, synthetic data generation capabilities, and demonstrated global commercialization track record as the basis for the valuation. The company’s ability to produce deployment-ready, high-quality training data at scale for Physical AI systems—robots, autonomous vehicles, and intelligent machines operating in the physical world—was highlighted as a core competitive advantage, particularly as manufacturers face acute shortages of labeled real-world data.

Omniverse-Based Digital Twins for Manufacturing

SKAI Intelligence provides digital twin and industrial synthetic data infrastructure built on NVIDIA Omniverse, precisely replicating real manufacturing and industrial environments. As an NVIDIA Independent Software Vendor (ISV), the company leverages Omniverse technologies to support digital twin workflows, synthetic data generation, and real-time simulation environments for Physical AI applications.

The platform delivers what the company calls “simulation-ready” data infrastructure, enabling Physical AI systems to validate a range of tasks—object recognition, grasping, path planning—before deployment into real-world settings. This addresses a chronic bottleneck on factory floors, where collecting labeled real-world data is expensive, time-consuming, and often impractical. By generating industrial-scale synthetic datasets for training, testing, evaluation, and validation, SKAI Intelligence aims to bridge the gap between simulation and real-world deployment.

The approach mirrors that of peers like CarbonSix, which raised $40 million in Series A to scale its own Physical AI infrastructure for manufacturing, and reflects a broader shift as factories integrate AI-driven automation. Other Korean Physical AI players such as FASSTO Robotics and Holiday Robotics—which recently closed a $103.4 million Series A—are also attracting capital as the sector heats up.

Strategic Partnerships and Global Expansion

Beyond funding, SKAI Intelligence has been widening its footprint through strategic partnerships. In June, the startup signed a memorandum of understanding with the Seoul National University AI Institute (AIIS), one of Asia’s leading artificial intelligence research organizations, to jointly advance core technologies for next-generation intelligent robotics. The two plan to collaborate on robotic perception and grasping, object recognition and pose estimation, monocular depth estimation, real-time object tracking, and other foundational technologies required for Physical AI systems.

The company has also concluded a strategic collaboration framework with global industrial robotics leader ABB Robotics, signaling its ambition to embed its infrastructure across multinational manufacturing operations. The partnership positions SKAI Intelligence to scale beyond Korea and tap into ABB’s extensive manufacturing customer base.

The momentum reflects broader industry trends. Naver recently invested in UVify to advance Physical AI through autonomous drone technology, while NeoArcRobotics raised a seed round to build cutting and welding robots for Korea’s shipyards, underscoring the diverse applications of Physical AI across industrial verticals.

Investor Track Record and Strategic Fit

The investors behind the round bring relevant experience. Weup Investment has a track record of backing companies that later went public, including Sillus Technology, Simplatform, and Link Solution, and has recently expanded its portfolio into AI, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing. The firm has also taken a stake in U.S. silicon photonics company Ayar Labs, reflecting its focus on next-generation compute and connectivity infrastructure.

“SKAI Intelligence has secured differentiated technical competitiveness in the industrial Physical AI domain through digital twin and synthetic data infrastructure, and its AI training data construction capabilities and global market expansion potential are very high,” an investor representative said in a statement. “We evaluated its potential to grow into a core infrastructure company in the AI transformation of manufacturing.”

What’s Next

With the fresh capital, SKAI Intelligence plans to accelerate R&D and push deeper into the global Physical AI market, advancing its digital twin and industrial synthetic data technologies while expanding into manufacturing, robotics, smart factories, and other industrial verticals.

“This additional investment is more than just capital—it’s formal recognition by the capital markets of SKAI Intelligence’s technology and growth potential,” said Jae-chul Lee, CEO of SKAI Intelligence. “We will continue to expand our R&D and global business foundation to become a core global data infrastructure company leading the Physical AI transformation of manufacturing.”

The company’s trajectory reflects a broader pattern: as Physical AI moves from research labs to factory floors, the infrastructure layer—simulation, synthetic data, and digital twins—is emerging as a critical bottleneck and investment target. SKAI Intelligence is positioning itself at the center of that shift.