Early-stage venture capital firm TheVentures said on May 20 it has made a seed investment in on-device AI startup Out of Set.

Out of Set is developing ultra-light vertical AI models that run on devices without an internet connection. It is focusing on addressing cloud AI constraints on-device, including risks of personal data leaks, network delays, high operating costs and server failures.

Out of Set's first target areas are speech recognition and speech synthesis. The company said demand for the two technologies is high not only in security-sensitive medical, legal and financial fields, but also across industries such as smartphones, cars and robots. Most on-device AI models on the market rely on compressing large cloud models, taking months before actual product deployment. Out of Set stressed it designs a native approach from the outset on the assumption of an on-device runtime environment, providing models that can be applied to products immediately without performance degradation.

Out of Set CEO Hyoung-joo Kim (김형주) said, "AI performance is determined by data and structural design, not model size." He added, "We will build the standard for the on-device AI market by designing from the research stage with actual device deployment in mind."