[Big Trend] Startups developing their own LLMs in specialised fields such as law and healthcare
[More diverse company information about the startups featured in this article is available on Unicorn Factory’s big data platform ‘Datalab’.]
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As the government pushes forward with the ‘独自 AI Foundation Model’ project to develop a national flagship large-scale AI model and secure technological sovereignty in AI, several startups are making a mark in the LLM (large language model) field through their own technological capabilities, despite not participating in the initiative.
The 18 companies belonging to the five teams selected for the final list of the Independent AI Foundation Model project announced by the Ministry of Science and ICT on the 4th include △Upstage △Twelve Labs △Rebellions △Liner △FuriosaAI △Wrtn Technologies, among others. Although they experienced the bitter disappointment of being eliminated in this evaluation, startups such as △Mathpresso △Tomorrow Robotics △Pebblous △Junction Med also challenged the project through consortia, expressing confidence in their AI capabilities.
There are also ‘hidden champions’ that did not apply for this project but are building differentiated technological capabilities by independently developing LLMs. Notable examples include △BHSN (legal) △EveryAI Korea (healthcare) △Miso (home services) △CLEVI (generative AI services) △42Maru (lightweight LLMs).
They have solved even the difficult ‘legal and healthcare’ fields
/Graphic by Lim Jong-cheol
Legal tech startup BHSN recently launched the legal-specialised LLM ‘Alibi Astro’. The legal-specialised LLM ‘Alibi Astro’, recently launched by legal tech startup BHSN, is particularly noteworthy. Alibi Astro enhanced its expertise through CPT (continual pre-training) based on extensive legal statutes, case law and policy data. It was trained in the language structures and context used in actual legal practice through RLHF (reinforcement learning from human feedback), incorporating the opinions of experts such as lawyers.
It can understand the context of questions, infer logical relationships across documents, and enable AI-based contract analysis. It can also review English EPC construction contracts averaging 100 pages in just one minute. It can build expert-level logic, including interpreting clauses and suggesting directions for amendments. Leading domestic conglomerates, including CJ CheilJedang and Aekyung Chemical, currently use Alibi Astro in their day-to-day work.
Every AI Korea’s specialised medical LLM, ‘e1-M’, is also attracting attention. Unlike existing global models that rely on English-based translation, e1 is designed to intuitively understand and reason through the context and nuances of Korean.
It scored 90.78 points on ‘KorMedMCQA’, a medical QA benchmark developed by a KAIST research team, outperforming GPT-4o (85.61 points) and Claude 3.5 (86.51 points). It was also highly rated for its reasoning ability to comprehensively analyse patient symptoms and test results and even suggest treatment directions.
Every AI Korea plans to develop industry-specific LLMs, including legal (e1-L) and financial (e1-F) models, in addition to medical models, and introduce e1-M-based medical AI solutions for use by hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and insurers.
"Why use ChatGPT?"…Low-cost, high-efficiency LLMs
Some startups are also taking on ChatGPT with low-cost, high-efficiency LLMs. ‘Ivy’, a generative AI service launched by CLEVI, is built around creating small models and distilling and combining them to minimise AI development costs. It introduced technology that efficiently manages the development process by applying automated, container-based deployment technology for training nodes (computing resources). Its key feature is that it significantly reduces service development and operating costs through efficient training pipeline design and optimisation of communication networks between nodes.
Miso, a startup providing more than 200 home services, including cleaning, moving and home appliance rentals, is also transforming itself into a technology company. It has launched the industry’s first LLM-based solution that uses AI to suggest the home services customers need and supports connections with experts. Previously, customers had to search for and apply for home service categories individually. Now, when customers consult about the problems they are experiencing, AI analyses them and recommends and connects them with the most suitable service.
FortyTwoMaru achieved technological differentiation with a highly reliable LLM. Its self-developed 'LLM42' is a lightweight LLM optimised for the Korean language environment, featuring a low-cost structure, high security and broad applicability in industrial settings.
Experts unanimously say that the government should formulate a strategy that makes these companies the central pillars of the national AI strategy, including not only companies participating in the independent AI foundation model project but also other start-ups. Choi Seong-jin, CEO of the Startup Growth Research Institute, emphasised, "Institutional frameworks must be designed so that start-ups can stand as central players, not mere extras, in AI policy," adding, "The success or failure of an AI superpower depends on start-ups."
/Graphic by Yoon Seon-jeong
Reporter Choi Tae-beom [email protected]
Source: Money Today (Reporter Choi Tae-beom) | https://www.mt.co.kr/future/2025/08/07/2025080518330143511
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