South Korean AI startup Liner has raised $36.1 million in a Series C funding round as the company moves beyond its consumer AI roots and expands its focus on enterprise applications.
The round, announced August 25, was led by LB Investment, with existing investors InterVest, Atinum Investment, and CJ Investment participating alongside new investors Korea Development Bank (KDB), KB Securities, Daishin Securities, STIC Ventures, and Helios Private Equity.
The latest financing comes approximately one year and 10 months after Liner’s previous funding round and brings the company’s total cumulative funding to approximately $64.3 million.
The financing comes as investors have become increasingly selective across the AI sector, placing greater emphasis on actual user adoption, commercial traction, and sustainable business models.
For Liner, the latest round reflects its effort to build on a consumer AI business that has grown to more than 14 million registered users while establishing a foothold in the enterprise market.
From Consumer AI to Enterprise
Since its Series B2 round in October 2024, Liner has expanded its portfolio of AI agents and grown its B2B business.
The company has developed specialized products including Liner Scholar for academic research, Liner Write for business use, and Liner Finance for investment research. The strategy has helped Liner build a global user base through product-led growth rather than relying heavily on aggressive marketing.
Liner says it currently has more than 14 million registered users across 220 countries, including the United States, Europe, India, and Southeast Asia.
As of late July 2026, the company ranked No. 30 globally in AI service web traffic on Similarweb, according to Liner. That put the startup ahead of several prominent AI services, including Poe, Mistral AI, and Glean.
Liner has also appeared on Andreessen Horowitz’s “Top 100 GenAI Consumer Apps” list for four consecutive editions since 2024. The company says it is the only South Korean AI startup to have achieved that distinction across all four editions.
The company’s technology has also been tested on factual accuracy. Liner scored 95.3 on OpenAI’s SimpleQA benchmark and says it outperformed GPT-4 in search-response generation.
That focus on research and factual accuracy is becoming increasingly important as AI companies move into areas where unsupported or inaccurate answers can have significant consequences.
A Major Enterprise Test in Saudi Arabia
Liner’s transition into enterprise AI is highlighted by its partnership with HUMAIN, a Saudi Arabian AI company chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The company supplied its deep research-based AI search technology for HUMAIN ONE, an integrated platform designed to serve Saudi government ministries and major corporations.
According to Liner, HUMAIN selected its technology after benchmarking it against solutions from global Big Tech companies.
The partnership gives Liner a significant enterprise reference as it attempts to demonstrate that technology developed for millions of consumer users can also support large organizations and government-related applications.
The company is leveraging its user data and an academic database containing more than 500 million records as part of its broader enterprise strategy.
The shift toward B2B is also an important business-model change. While consumer AI products can generate significant user growth, enterprise customers can provide larger and potentially more durable commercial opportunities.
Where the New Funding Will Go
Liner plans to invest the Series C proceeds in research and development, infrastructure, global hiring, marketing, and business expansion.
The company says it will prioritize its core technologies and infrastructure while expanding its research capabilities in both domestic and international enterprise markets.
It also plans to recruit global talent and develop new monetization models for its consumer products.
The longer-term objective is to position Liner as an everyday AI service for consumers while building a larger enterprise AI business.
Ki-ho Park, CEO of LB Investment, said the company’s combination of global users, traffic, enterprise deployment, and expansion into B2B AI was central to the investment decision.
“Liner now serves 14 million users, ranks No. 30 globally in AI web traffic, has deployed its technology to HUMAIN, and has expanded into enterprise AI. Those milestones attracted $36.1M million in new funding. We led this investment without hesitation out of a strong conviction that Liner is a one-of-a-kind AI startup already proving its worth through real traffic and commercial milestones on the global stage.”
For Liner CEO Luke Kim, the new funding is intended to help the company compete on technology and infrastructure rather than simply spending its way into growth.
“This investment goes beyond merely expanding our footprint. It serves as a strategic foundation to secure world-class infrastructure and top global talent, both of which are essential to anchoring reliability, the ultimate core of any AI agent. Rather than depending on short-term, marketing-driven expansion, we are focused on establishing a self-sustaining business model that builds lasting value through technological leadership and transforms us into a global AI enterprise.”
He added:
“As we compete on the global stage with world-class technology and proven traffic amid intense international competition, we appreciate your continued interest and support in Liner’s journey and future achievements.”
Liner’s Funding History
The Series C brings Liner’s cumulative funding to approximately $64.3 million.
- Angel Round: Approximately $0.64 million
- Series A: Approximately $3.2 million, July 2020
- Series B: $7.07 million, September 2022
- Series B2: $17.3 million, October 2024
- Series C: $36.1 million, August 2026
The latest round is a significant step in Liner’s evolution from an AI-powered consumer research platform into a broader AI agent company serving both individuals and enterprises.
The company’s next challenge will be turning its large global user base and early enterprise deployments into a scalable commercial business. With $36.1 million in new capital, Liner now has additional resources to invest in the technology, infrastructure, and talent required to compete in an increasingly crowded global AI market.
