NAVER D2SF Invests in Voice AI Startup Podonos

NAVER D2SF has made a strategic investment in Podonos, a North America-headquartered startup that focuses on voice AI model assessment and benchmarking. This pre-seed financing round, headed by U.S.-based Serac Ventures, is the first institutional capital raise for Podonos. Korean investors NAVER D2SF and KAIST Venture Investment Holdings also took part.

The growth in voice AI adoption across industries such as speech recognition, media, and customer service, accurate, scalable model evaluation tools are increasingly important. Podonos responds with a proprietary platform that leverages a global network of more than 150,000 human evaluators and a patented automation engine, producing voice model evaluations within less than 12 hours.

Yang Sang-hwan, NAVER D2SF Leader said, "As we move into an era of AI abundance, the value of 'AI for AI'—products that make AI more accessible and trustworthy is increasing. Podonos is among a limited number of international teams that can objectively compare voice AI performance."

Key highlights:

• NAVER D2SF, Serac Ventures, and KAIST invest in Podonos, a voice AI startup focused on model evaluation and benchmarking, in a pre-seed round
• Podonos uses more than 150,000 global evaluators and AI automation to deliver voice AI model assessments in under 12 hours, supporting major firms like Resemble AI and Sanas AI
• The startup plans to expand into healthcare, finance, and gaming, while enhancing its automated analysis tools and global team with the new funding

Podonos's technology is already utilized by leading voice AI firms like Resemble AI, Play AI, and Sanas AI, and expansion into the healthcare, finance, and gaming industries is on the cards.

" We look forward to collaborating closely with NAVER D2SF to enhance the quality of voice services. With this investment, we will expand our team and strengthen our automated analysis tools. " said Soo-hyun Bae, CEO at Podonos.

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NAVER D2SF keeps investing in "AI for AI" startups to further build up the AI development ecosystem around the world.