Liner raises $50B Series C to expand its AI search agents
What's the deal? Liner, a South Korean AI agent startup, has raised a $50 billion Series C round, it announced in August 2026. LB InvestmentDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → led the round, with existing backers Atinum InvestmentDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and CJ InvestmentDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → following on, alongside new investors Korea Development BankDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Helios Private Equity, KB SecuritiesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Daishin SecuritiesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and STIC VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
Why now? The round lands roughly one year and 10 months after Liner's previous raise, bringing its total funding to about 94 billion won. Core early backers held or increased their stakes despite a tougher climate for AI companies.
What does Liner do? It builds AI search and productivity agents aimed at reducing hallucination. The company says it scored 95.3 on OpenAI's SimpleQA factual-accuracy benchmark and that its component-based search LLM outperformed GPT-4o across eight core areas.
Traction: Liner reports 14 million users across more than 220 countries, including the US, Europe, India, and Southeast Asia. As of late July 2026, it ranked 30th in Similarweb's global AI service traffic rankings — ahead of PoeDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Mistral AI, and GleanDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
What's the endgame? Liner has expanded from consumer tools into B2B enterprise, supplying its deep-research AI search engine to HUMAINDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → One, the platform of Saudi state-backed AI firm HUMAIN. It will direct the new funding mainly toward R&D, infrastructure, talent, and business expansion.
"Liner has unrivalled technology that can stand shoulder to shoulder with global big tech in AI search and agents," said Park Ki-ho, chief executive officer of LB Investment. Liner chief executive officer Kim Jin-woo called the round "a strategic move to secure the technical infrastructure and talent" behind reliable AI agents.
The signal: By amount, this ranks in the top percentile of all-time Series C rounds in South Korean enterprise software, a sample of 2,456 deals. It signals that select AI startups with proven global traction can still command outsized funding as investors grow more selective.
Read more: wowtale.net
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
