CB Insights highlights MakinaRocks as a leader in the ‘Factory Analytics & AI’ field Co-CEOs Yoon & Lee, “MakinaRocks will continue to help make industries more intelligent as a leader in manufacturing and industrial AI”
SEOUL, South Korea, July 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — MakinaRocks, a South Korean AI startup specialized in the manufacturing and industrial sectors, was named in the ‘Advanced Manufacturing 50’ list published by CB Insights.
MakinaRocks was the only South Korean winner to be named in the ‘Factory Analytics & AI’ field. A total of 8 companies made the list in this field, including Cognite – Norway’s first ever unicorn – and Seeq – a leading US-based startup in manufacturing and IIoT analytics software.
CB Insights published its first annual Advanced Manufacturing 50 list, after reviewing a pool of over 6,000 companies. The 50 winners were chosen based on factors including R&D activity, proprietary Mosaic scores, market potential, competitive landscape, investor profile, team strength and tech novelty. The 50 selected companies have raised over $6.9 billion in total since 2017, with 12 of them being unicorns with a $1 billion+ valuation.
In terms of global reach, 27 of the selected companies are headquartered in the US, while Germany and Canada tied for second with 4 winners each. Landing AI, founded by leading AI expert Dr. Andrew Ng, was listed in the ‘Visual Inspection’ field, while one other South Korean startup – OnePredict – made the list in the ‘Predictive Maintenance’ field.
“Being named in the AM50 list is an important achievement that proves MakinaRocks’ value, which continues to grow in the global market based on our manufacturing and industry focused AI capabilities and know-hows,” said co-CEOs Andre Yoon and Jaehyuk Lee. They mentioned that “MakinaRocks will continue to solve various problems confronting the manufacturing and industrial sectors as a global leader in industrial AI, by creating real impacts on different industries and making their processes more intelligent.”
MakinaRocks is an AI startup that offers AI solutions and an MLOps platform, both specialized for manufacturing and industrial sectors. MakinaRocks launched Link™, an AI/ML modelling tool that allows data scientists to visualize their pipelines and easily deploy their models. In the coming months, MakinaRocks plans to launch Runway™, a MLOps platform for manufacturing and industrial sectors.
Founded in 2017, MakinaRocks operates offices in Seoul, Korea and Silicon Valley, US with a team of 80 employees, 75% of whom are engineers. MakinaRocks raised $11.5 million from its 2018 seed-round funding and 2020 Series A funding from prestigious global investors, including Hyundai Motor Company (KRX: 005380), SK Telecom (KRX: 017670), LG Technology Ventures, Applied Ventures and Korea Development Bank. Experts highlighted that this was a rare occurrence for a startup to bring together major Korean conglomerates for a Series A funding round. In 2021, MakinaRocks was previously named as one of the “World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers,” a list occupied by brands like Google, Airbnb and Palantir Technologies.