Liner raises USD $36.1 million to expand enterprise AI

Liner has raised USD $36.1 million in a Series C funding round as it expands from consumer AI search into enterprise AI agents.

LB Investment led the round, with follow-on backing from existing shareholders InterVest, Atinum Investment and CJ Investment. New investors included Korea Development Bank, KB Securities, Daishin Securities, STIC Ventures and Helios Private Equity.

The fundraising came about one year and 10 months after Liner's previous financing round. The company has now raised about USD $64.3 million in cumulative funding.

Liner built its profile through consumer AI products before pushing further into business services. Its services now have more than 14 million registered users in 220 countries across the US, Europe, India and Southeast Asia.

According to figures cited by the company, Liner ranked 30th globally among AI services by web traffic in late July 2026, ahead of Poe, Mistral AI and Glean.

Founded in South Korea, the company has focused on tools that return answers with citations and traceable sources. Its broader product line includes Liner Scholar for academic research, Liner Write for business use and Liner Finance for investment research.

Enterprise push

More recently, Liner has moved into enterprise deployments. One of its highest-profile commercial deals is with HUMAIN, a Saudi state-backed AI company chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Liner supplied its research-based AI search engine for HUMAIN ONE, an integrated platform for Saudi government ministries and large companies. According to the company, HUMAIN selected the technology after benchmarking it against global technology groups.

The partnership marks an important step in Liner's effort to translate consumer traction into business revenue. The company said it uses user data and an academic database of more than 500 million records as part of its enterprise offering.

Liner also pointed to internal and third-party measures of accuracy in its pitch to investors and customers. It said it scored 95.3 on OpenAI's SimpleQA benchmark, which measures factual accuracy, and outperformed GPT-4 in search-response generation.

Investors in AI have become more selective as the sector has matured and funding has grown harder to secure for smaller companies. Against that backdrop, Liner's ability to draw repeat support from earlier backers suggests they see progress in both audience growth and commercial development.

Ki-ho Park explained the reasoning behind the investment.

"Liner now serves 14 million users, ranks No. 30 globally in AI web traffic, has deployed its technology to HUMAIN, and has expanded into enterprise AI. Those milestones attracted $36.1M million in new funding. We led this investment without hesitation out of a strong conviction that Liner is a one-of-a-kind AI startup already proving its worth through real traffic and commercial milestones on the global stage," said Ki-ho Park, Chief Executive Officer of LB Investment.

Use of funds

The company will use the fresh capital for research and development, infrastructure expansion, recruitment and broader business growth. It also plans to direct resources toward domestic and international enterprise AI markets while continuing work on its consumer services.

Liner wants to diversify revenue from its consumer products and refine its agent technology for broader everyday use. That approach reflects a wider trend in AI, as startups face pressure to turn user growth and technical claims into lasting income.

Luke Kim, the company's Chief Executive Officer, said the latest round is intended to support that transition.

"This investment goes beyond merely expanding our footprint. It serves as a strategic foundation to secure world-class infrastructure and top global talent, both of which are essential to anchoring reliability, the ultimate core of any AI agent. Rather than depending on short-term, marketing-driven expansion, we are focused on establishing a self-sustaining business model that builds lasting value through technological leadership and transforms us into a global AI enterprise," said Kim.

Kim added a second comment on the company's international position.

"As we compete on the global stage with world-class technology and proven traffic amid intense international competition, we appreciate your continued interest and support in Liner's journey and future achievements," said Kim.