Liner has closed a 50 billion won ($36 million) funding round led by LB Investment, bringing its cumulative funding to 93 billion won. Existing shareholders Atinum Investment and CJ Investment participated again, while Korea Development Bank, Helios Private Equity, KB Securities and Daishin Securities joined as new investors. Liner develops AI agent services for academic, business and investment research and has 14 million users across roughly 220 countries. It plans to direct the proceeds mainly to research and development and diversify the business model for its consumer services. Separately, Aston Sciences raised 39.6 billion won from new investors Korea Development Bank, Pathway Partners and Korea Investment Partners, alongside follow-on investments from SBI Investment, ID Ventures and Lakewood Partners. The company is developing AST-301, a therapeutic vaccine for gastric cancer, and plans to use the funds for clinical development after completing enrollment in a Phase 2 trial. Forge, an early-stage defense and manufacturing infrastructure startup founded in January this year, also received its first institutional investment, including backing from NAVER D2SF, K-Net Investment Partners, Sazae Partners and D.CAMP. Forge connects domestic factories with global defense and advanced-hardware companies by collecting factory data and converting it into standardized documentation and compliance formats.