"I Won’t Sell It": Non-Vision AI Startup Challenges Samsung and Toyota
Suwon KT Wiz Park displays real-time congestion levels for each area on its electronic screens to help prevent crowding accidents. The artificial intelligence (AI) system analyzes the density of approximately 50 people in the stadium through CCTV footage and visualizes the congestion levels accordingly. After successfully adopting this solution, KT plans to expand its use to other sports stadiums and concert venues.
The solution was developed by the startup Superb AI, which created the Superb Platform — a development tool for building vision AI applications used in areas such as security and safety management, defect detection, inventory control, and autonomous driving. The congestion analysis solution supplied to KT was also built using the Superb Platform. In a way, it’s as if a company that once made excavators and cranes decided to build its own skyscraper using its own machines.
“Originally, the Superb Platform itself was our main business model,” said Kim Hyun-soo, CEO of Superb AI. “However, we found that many companies still had difficulty using the platform effectively. Then we thought, why not create AI solutions ourselves using our own platform? That’s how we decided to expand into solution development last year.”
From Tools to Complete Solutions: “Vision AI Does It All”
The core of the Superb Platform lies in improving the efficiency of companies developing vision AI. It automates the entire development process, including data labeling, data selection, model training, and synthetic data generation.
“Vision AI development involves more repetitive and tedious tasks than most people expect,” Kim explained. “By automating those parts, we can shorten the process from about six months to roughly two weeks.”
Another key strength of the Superb Platform is its ability to easily modify already-built AI models.
“For example,” Kim said, “a company that uses AI to detect whether a worker is wearing a helmet would normally need to invest a lot of time and money to adapt it to detect protective gloves instead. This is why some companies say, ‘We shouldn’t have bothered implementing AI.’ The Superb Platform allows anyone to easily improve and modify their AI models.”
Thanks to these advantages, the Superb Platform is now being used by AI development teams at Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Qualcomm, Toyota, Hyundai Motor, and SK Telecom, among others. According to Kim, the platform helps companies minimize time spent on repetitive tasks and focus on their core technologies, such as algorithmic improvement and innovation.
Despite its strengths, the platform’s adoption did not initially meet expectations. In traditional manufacturing sectors, many companies lacked the resources or expertise to utilize the Superb Platform effectively.
To address this, Superb AI began directly developing customized AI solutions using its own platform. One notable example is the congestion analysis solution deployed at KT Wiz Park.
“Instead of waiting for the industry to learn how to use the Superb Platform well,” Kim said, “we decided to create and sell AI solutions ourselves. The demand for full-scope AI solution development has been much higher than we expected, and it now accounts for about half of our total sales.”
From On-site Frustrations to a Global AI Startup
The idea for the Superb Platform originated from Kim’s own experience. Holding a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Duke University, Kim returned to Korea in 2016 after being scouted by SK Telecom’s AI research team. While developing game AI and autonomous driving technologies for two years, he experienced firsthand the inefficiencies that made it difficult to apply new AI technologies in real-world projects.
In 2018, Kim founded Superb AI with four colleagues to develop tools that could solve these inefficiencies. The startup quickly drew attention from investors — notably being backed by Y Combinator, the largest startup accelerator in the United States. Within just three years, one of the global “M7” tech companies even offered to acquire Superb AI.
“All five co-founders agreed not to sell,” Kim recalled. “Honestly, I thought someone might accept the offer, but to my surprise, everyone said no.”
That decision — to grow independently rather than join Big Tech — is now paying off.
Superb AI has so far attracted ₩49 billion (approximately USD 35 million) in cumulative investment and is aiming for an IPO on the Korean stock market in the second half of next year.
To prepare for the listing, the company is relocating its headquarters from the U.S. to Korea.
“I believe it’s right to pursue our IPO in Korea,” Kim said. “Our main customers are in Korea and Japan, and most of our investors are Korean institutional investors.”
Kim added, “Our goal is to integrate the Superb Platform into the development processes of numerous AI products and services that people encounter in everyday life. In particular, we aim for the Superb Platform to become the industry standard for developing vision AI across all leading companies.”
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