Guru Company (CEO Wonhyuk Choi), which operates the webtoon and web novel API infrastructure 'Treasure Island', has been finally selected for the '2025 Content Startup Investment-linked Startup Leap Program' hosted by the Korea Creative Content Agency under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
This selection is the result of a focused evaluation of the content startup’s global expansion potential and technological competitiveness. Guru Company has attracted 2 billion won in investment through a pre-A round in 2024, and is currently in full swing attracting Series A investment. Through this business selection, the company will receive up to 200 million won in commercialization funds and a customized scale-up program.
Guru Company is a technology startup that operates the webtoon and web novel API infrastructure 'Treasure Island', which provides content to major domestic corporate apps. It is currently developing the LLM-based automatic localization solution 'MALT' (Multi-model Automated Localization and Translation) as a core technology for expanding its API globally. MALT is a one-stop pipeline that automates the entire localization process from OCR to translation, inpainting, and typeset by combining the latest AI models such as GPT-4o, Claude, LaMa, and YOLOv8.
“Although the recent rapid development of AI technology has led to dramatic improvements in OCR and machine translation quality, webtoon localization still relies on fragmented manual processes, which consume excessive time and money,” said Guru Company CTO Hwang-soo Kim. “If MALT is commercialized, the entire process can be automated, reducing localization costs and time by up to 90%. In addition, global distribution, which has been limited to domestic hits so far, can be expanded to all K-content through ‘Treasure Island.’”
Guru Company CEO Wonhyuk Choi, who is in charge of the Treasure Island business, added, “We plan to cover the labor costs required for final inspection and quality assurance through the R/S (Revenue Share) method based on sales generated from the API infrastructure. Through this, we will support small and medium-sized content production companies to attempt to enter the global market without the burden of translation costs.”
He emphasized, “With this selection for the startup leap program as an opportunity, we will grow MALT from a simple translation tool to a core infrastructure for exporting K-content,” and “We will quickly create tangible results through collaboration with influential platforms at home and abroad.”
Meanwhile, the 'Content Startup Investment Linked Startup Leap Program' is a project operated by the Korea Creative Content Agency with the goal of strengthening the self-reliance of content startups. It provides startups that have attracted a single investment of 400 million won or more from private investment institutions with up to 200 million won in commercialization funds, customized mentoring, and opportunities to invite investors and pitch.
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