Naver Ventures to plant flag in Silicon Valley with TwelveLabs bet

Naver Ventures, the first dedicated Silicon Valley venture capital arm of Naver Corp., has made its debut investment in Nvidia Corp.-backed TwelveLabs Inc., underscoring the South Korean tech giant’s deepening push into artificial intelligence.

“The AI wave is growing larger and moving faster, poised to disrupt the world on a scale similar to the internet and mobile revolutions,” Naver founder Lee Hae-jin said last week in Silicon Valley, where he made the launch of Naver Ventures, the company’s first overseas venture arm, official to an audience of startup founders and engineers.

With TwelveLabs, Naver is expected to focus on enhancing its AI capabilities across its e-commerce platforms, content search engine and smart city projects powered by digital twin technology.

TwelveLabs is a Silicon Valley-based startup with an unrivaled multimodal AI technology, enabling users to search through video for specific moments, summarize clips or ask questions. It has attracted big-name backers, including Nvidia, Samsung Electronics Co. and Intel Corp.

Naver did not disclose the size of its investment in the AI startup or unveil the equity capital of Naver Ventures.

Starting with TwelveLabs, Naver’s new venture capital is also forecast to accelerate investments in other future technologies beyond AI – mainly robotics, as well as bio and health. It is also likely to actively pursue overseas mergers and acquisitions.

“Naver is well-positioned to grow alongside diverse partners around the world,” said Lee, who returned to the Korean platform giant as chairman of the board earlier this year.

“We will build a sustainable ecosystem that can co-exist through collaboration and investment in global AI startups.”

Naver Ventures will be headed by Kim Nam-sun, Naver’s president of investments, who previously led the Korean platform giant’s multiple M&As, including a $1.6 billion deal to acquire Poshmark, a US-based social e-commerce platform, as well as Wattpad, a renowned online novel platform based in Canada.

SOVERIGN AI BACKED BY AMPLE DATA

With foreign, advanced AI technologies, Naver is seeking to secure sovereignty in AI technology in the long run, while reinforcing its core businesses – search, content and e-commerce – in the short term, said industry observers.

Sovereign AI refers to a nation or company’s capabilities to produce artificial intelligence using its own infrastructure, data, workforce and business networks.

Addressing concerns over Naver’s competitiveness against foreign Big Tech and AI giants, Lee said the company is no stranger to uphill battles.

“When fighting Goliath, David must carefully choose the right stone to win, and we are focused on identifying and shaping that stone by developing core technologies like large language models and cloud,” added Lee.

Naver has developed its large language model, HyperCLOVA X, but it has not yet matched the capabilities and scale of bigger rivals such as OpenAI, the US developer of ChatGPT, and China’s DeepSeek.

The company plans to leverage its extensive commerce data accumulated from operating its diverse platforms – Naver Shopping in Korea, Line messenger app in Japan, Poshmark in the US and Wallapop in Spain – to build its sovereign tech. 

The Korean portal giant also operates entities in Saudi Arabia and France.

“In the early days of the search engine wars, algorithms were the key to success. But eventually, it was data that made the difference,” said Lee. “The AI race will also likely end the same way – as a battle over data.”

MORE AGGRESSIVE GLOBAL PUSH THAN D2SF

Until now, Naver invested in AI technologies through its in-house startup accelerator D2 Startup Factory (D2SF).

Through D2SF, Naver made a handful of investments in US startups – including Rembrand, an ad tech startup focused on AI-powered video advertising, Claythis, a generative AI-based 3D content creator, and YesPlz, a fashion-focused multimodal AI developer.

While D2SF has made limited forays into US AI startups, Naver Ventures is designed as a more aggressive and autonomous vehicle targeting the competitive US market.

Naver Ventures will be formally incorporated later this month, the company said.

Write to Jeong-Hoon An at Ajh6321@hankyung.com
Sookyung Seo edited this article.