This article was displayed on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove (MM) site at 6:26 p.m. on June 11, 2026.
Wrtn Technologies, an AI services startup best known for its AI character chatbot service "Crack," has begun a large-scale fundraising. Positioned as a pre-IPO round, it is also seeking a direct investment from the Public Growth Fund, targeting to become the first among B2C AI service companies.
On the 11th, according to the venture capital (VC) industry, Wrtn Technologies recently finalized its plan to raise a Series C and began a demand survey targeting financial investors (FIs) such as VCs. It comes a little over a year after it raised a 100 billion won Series B round in March last year from Goodwater Capital and BRV Capital Management.
The raise is set at more than 300 billion won. After gathering 150 billion won in private capital, it plans to pursue funding from the "K-Nvidia Project." The K-Nvidia Project is a government AI industry promotion plan that essentially matches private investment 1-to-1 with policy funds such as the Public Growth Fund.
Wrtn Technologies is one of the representative homegrown AI service corporations. It started as a developer of a writing-assistant AI service and has expanded to a Generative AI-based search portal and a conversation-based, lifestyle AI platform. The AI character chatbot service Crack is said to have more than 500,000 users.
Investor interest is reportedly relatively strong. Thanks to the market traction of the Crack service, revenue is growing quickly. Last year's revenue was 47.1 billion won, 15 times higher than the previous year's 3.1 billion won. However, due to increased marketing expense and other factors, operating losses in the same period also rose from 30.2 billion won to 58.9 billion won.
The fact that direct investments by the Public Growth Fund are spreading across the AI value chain is also seen as an attraction for Wrtn Technologies. The Financial Services Commission was said to have noted at a Public Growth Fund investment meeting last month that for AI infrastructure to be used, the development and distribution of AI application services are also important.
The Public Growth Fund earlier selected AI Semiconductor developer Rebellions as its first direct investment company and invested a total of 300 billion won (250 billion won from the Public Growth Fund and 50 billion won from Korea Development Bank (KDB)). It then selected AI model developer Upstage as the second, and AI Semiconductor developer FuriosaAI as the third.
Wrtn Technologies plans to use the new funds to accelerate its overseas expansion. Last year, it already launched an AI character chat service in Japan and released a chatbot service in the United States. The company is expanding its B2B chatbot service business and has also set a plan to pursue an IPO in 2028.
A VC industry official said, "The fact that Wrtn Technologies has a solid user base and revenue growth is a strength," but added, "Views may differ on whether it is appropriate for policy funds, justified by the goal of fostering advanced strategic industries, to be invested directly in consumer AI service corporations."