Bering Lab, a legal AI translation company co-led by Jae-yoon Kim and Sung-hyun Moon, has successfully raised 3 billion won (approximately $2.3 million USD) in a pre-A investment round. This round was spearheaded by SBVA (formerly SoftBank Ventures) and included participation from The MBA Fund, a US venture capital firm established by graduates of Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton Business School.
Founded in 2020, Bering Lab has developed a specialized AI engine tailored for the legal sector, demonstrating superior performance over general AI translation tools. The company offers two primary services: Bering AI and Bering AI Plus. To date, Bering Lab has secured over 300 clients worldwide, including more than 140 law firms and corporate legal teams. The company is highly regarded for its translation accuracy and speed, boasting a solution repurchase rate exceeding 90%.
Bering AI, a subscription-based AI translation platform, is designed to support the work of small and medium-sized law firms, individual lawyers, and professional translators. It can handle both simple texts and complex documents. Bering AI Plus caters to law firms, patent firms, corporations, and government agencies requiring higher accuracy. After an initial AI translation, the results are reviewed by a network of 500 lawyers and 800 professional translators across over 30 countries, achieving an impressive quality accuracy of 99%.
With this new funding, Bering Lab plans to enhance its user experience and expand into the global market. The company has already secured clients in 15 countries, including the US, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan, demonstrating its potential for international growth. Bering Lab has also garnered attention for its technology, winning accolades in competitions such as the Huawei Cloud Startup Competition and the Global LegalTech Venture Days Competition.
Bering Lab’s future plans include expanding its services beyond legal and patent translations to various specialized fields such as finance, clinical, and IT. The company also aims to offer business translation machines tailored to specific companies or industries.
Se-Young Lee, head of SBVA, stated, “Bering Lab is a unique company in domestic legal translation, bringing innovation to the professional translation industry with its legal expertise and AI technology. We expect it to expand its services to various fields, including patents and clinical trials, while also growing in the global market.”
Kim Jae-yoon, co-CEO of Bering Lab, added, “With Bering Lab’s unique technology and expertise, we are presenting a new business model to the translation industry. In the future, we will expand our market and service areas to grow into a platform where experts in each field can work globally without language barriers.”
Keep tab on latest news in the Korean startup ecosystem & follow us on LinkedIN, Facebook, and Twitter for more exciting updates and insights.
