Upstage is a company that is making waves with its innovative focus on enterprise-grade generative AI solutions. Recently, the company unveiled a $45 million Series B bridge funding round, primarily backed by notable entities including the Korea Development Bank (KDB), Amazon, and AMD.
This infusion of capital elevates Upstage’s total funding to $157 million, paving the way for the accelerated development of its Solar language model, enhancements to its document AI products, and strategic expansion into the U.S. and Asia-Pacific (APAC) markets.
The funding will not only bolster Upstage’s financial standing but also significantly fuel its research and development (R&D) initiatives. These efforts aim to enhance the capabilities of the Solar language model and broaden its applicability in various enterprise scenarios. Key use cases include document parsing, agentic task execution, and workflow automation, all designed to optimize business operations.
Upstage also recently formed a strategic alliance with Amazon Web Services (AWS), its preferred cloud provider, to further develop its Solar language models and broaden access to generative AI technology. Within this collaboration, Upstage plans to leverage AWS’s robust infrastructure for machine learning, which includes tools such as SageMaker, along with cutting-edge AWS-designed silicon, including AWS Trainium and Inferentia.
The enhanced AI functionalities are meticulously crafted to tackle pressing inefficiencies within target industries, with a particular focus on the insurance sector. Recent analyses have highlighted the staggering claims adjudication costs in the U.S. insurance landscape, which reached a staggering $25.7 billion. Alarmingly, $18 billion of these costs stem from overturned denials and excessive review cycles—issues primarily caused by labor-intensive, paper-driven processes and antiquated, fragmented systems. Upstage is committed to confronting these challenges head-on, positioning insurance as its inaugural global vertical, especially in areas such as claims processing and broker submissions that are primed for automation.
At the core of Upstage’s strategic framework is its Document Intelligence suite. This suite comprises two key components: Document Parse, which adeptly converts unstructured documents into structured formats optimized for large language models (LLMs), and Information Extract, which efficiently identifies and extracts critical data points from raw textual information. Whether handling complex policies, loss runs, financial statements, invoices, or email communications, the Document Intelligence platform operates with remarkable precision, achieving over 95% accuracy in processing a diverse range of document types.
This capability not only eliminates the burdensome task of manual data entry but also significantly reduces processing times, enabling faster and more automated decision-making.
What sets Upstage’s Document Intelligence apart from conventional optical character recognition (OCR) tools is its ability to comprehensively interpret documents. Rather than simply extracting static fields, Upstage’s technology understands the context, layout, meaning, and purpose of each document, delivering structured outputs that are seamlessly integrated into real-world workflows.
The Solar LLM consists of a suite of proprietary small LLMs, meticulously trained using Amazon SageMaker and made available through the Amazon Bedrock Marketplace. This robust suite underpins Upstage’s overarching generative AI stack. Additionally, the company offers its Universal Information Extractor, an intelligent AI agent designed for deep document-level understanding, which can be accessed through the AWS AI Agents and Tools Marketplace.
Upstage’s innovative models are already being utilized by leading Fortune 500 companies, including technology powerhouse Samsung, and are extensively adopted by numerous Korean insurance firms. The company’s solutions have also found applications in various public sector and government organizations, demonstrating Upstage’s exceptional capacity to transition concepts into practical implementations. As adoption continues to flourish in the U.S. insurance market and other highly structured industries, Upstage is poised for significant growth.
The newly secured Series B bridge funding is set to propel further expansion, particularly in sales and marketing staffing, while also facilitating continued international outreach. This bridge funding round builds on the company’s earlier $72 million Series B funding, announced in 2024, which various Korean investors, including SK Networks and Shinhan Venture Investment, spearheaded.
KEY QUOTES:
“This is a pivotal moment not just for Upstage, but for the future of generative AI in the enterprise. The next phase of AI is about performance, precision, and readiness for real-world complexity. That is exactly what we’ve built with our suite. Our collaboration with AWS brings scale, credibility, and deep technical alignment — all critical as we deliver production-ready AI from day one in high-stakes sectors like commercial and public sector insurance.”
Sung Kim, Co-Founder and CEO of Upstage
“Most enterprise teams are still buried in document chaos. We bring structure and speed to that mess, helping carriers and brokers move faster, reduce costs, and serve clients with confidence.”
Kasey Roh, U.S. CEO at Upstage
