SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man invests $5.2 million in AI startup Mindlogic

SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man [NEWS1]

SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man invested 7 billion won ($5.23 million) in the Korean AI startup Mindlogic during its Series B funding round, continuing his trend of making aggressive investments in future technologies such as bio and drones since his ousting from his own company last year.

In total, Mindlogic’s accumulated investment sum is 12 billion won. Other venture capitalists such as DSC Investment, Strong Ventures, Tekton Ventures and Partech Partners also participated in the funding.

Mindlogic is an AI startup offering a “Persona Chatbots” service, allowing users to imbue specific knowledge and personality traits into the chatbot and interact with the AI using a particular persona.

A distinctive feature of the chatbot is that it has long-term memory and can recall all past conversations it has had with the user, based on Mindlogic’s in-house technology dubbed “Persona Engram.” As the chatbot is capable of remembering prior chats, it can deduce a user’s mood or actions and initiate friendly conversations.

The chatbot also possesses intellectual property (IP) protection technology regarding a user’s private information or IP. If related information comes up in the conversation, the AI can segment that part from others to be kept on a separate server, ensuring it is not used for machine training. Voice chats with the Persona Chatbot are also possible.

Mindlogic is expanding its chatbot service to the business-to-business (B2B) sector this year. In the e-commerce space, the chatbot can recommend products, send promotional messages and provide purchasing instructions and delivery guidance. In sales, the chatbot will offer product information to potential customers, while on the web it offers instant guidance regarding a website.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]