Korea's AI planning engine — from Korea
Amoza is building aPlanner, an AI-powered production planning engine for semiconductor fabs, and founding Amoza Korea Co., Ltd. in 2027 to pilot it with Korean fabs and suppliers. A US$800K Pre-Seed round is planned for 2027, after Korean public programs.
Investment highlights
Clear pain point
US$100M+ per year per large fab lost to manual planning — 3–5-day planning cycles, 55–65 % forecast accuracy in Excel
Large, concentrated market
APS software US$1.3–4.7B (2025, 9–11 % CAGR); Korea makes ≈ 70 % of DRAM and > 50 % of NAND, with 16 new fabs planned in the Yongin–Pyeongtaek cluster
AI-native, semiconductor-specific
Yield-aware constraint scheduling, node-migration planning and explainable re-planning — KIPO patent applications planned Dec 2026 / Q1 2027
Founder-led, from inside the fab
Founder Nguyen Van Duong (Danniel Ng) + 2 Siemens Industry Software advisors + 5 engineering partners; no legal entity yet — personal research, self-funded
Founding Amoza Korea
Founding Amoza Korea Co., Ltd. under the Technology Startup Visa program (OASIS) in 2027 — Korean counterparty, Korean data residency, KRW pricing
Capital efficient
US$100K bootstrap has produced working prototypes; Korean public programs (TIPS, Pre-startup Package) before equity; hiring gated on signed subscriptions
Financial plan
Plan — base case. aPlanner is pre-commercial: there is no revenue to date and no customer has been signed. Y1 is the Bootstrap year (2026–27); the figures below are planning assumptions, not forecasts of actual results.
| Metric (plan) | Y1 | Y2 | Y3 | Y4 | Y5 | Y6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $0 | $1M | $3M | $5M | $8M | $10M |
| Customers | 0 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 25 | 35 |
| Headcount | 7 | 20 | 30 | 60 | 100 | 150 |
Y1 = 2026–27 (Bootstrap). Revenue in USD equivalent; contracts are denominated in KRW. Headcount includes Amoza Korea and the Amoza AI engineering partner.
Funding timeline
Award, IP, company, visa, pilot — in that order. Korean public programs de-risk the first year; the Pre-Seed buys the pilot and the first Korean hires.
OASIS-6 & IP
OASIS-6 Global Startup Challenge; KIPO patent application #1; trademarks Amoza / aPlanner; MVP validation on synthetic fab data; Korean UI.
Incorporation & D-8-4
Incorporate Amoza Korea Co., Ltd. (Incheon Songdo or Suwon — TBC); D-8-4 Technology Startup Visa; apply TIPS / Pre-startup Package; engineering-services agreement with Amoza AI.
First fab pilot & Pre-Seed
Paid readiness assessment → first Korean fab pilot (one line, 8–12 weeks); 2 Korean engineering hires; Pre-Seed ≈ KRW 1.1B on SAFE, pre-money US$3–5M.
First KRW revenue
Pilot converts to Starter subscription; second Korean customer (supplier / OSAT); SOC 2 Type II preparation (planned 2027–28).
Seed
5–10 Korean customers; aMonitor; Singapore / Vietnam from Korea HQ; Seed at US$12–20M pre-money.
Series A
Full MAKE pillar, APAC expansion from Korea. Later rounds (Series B, Series C) follow as the MOVE, SELL and DELIGHT pillars open — no amounts promised.
Use of funds (Pre-Seed)
US$800K ≈ KRW 1.12B over 12–18 months
Product & AI
2 Korean engineers, Amoza AI engineering team, on-prem lab, pilot-grade connectors
Korean GTM & pilots
Readiness assessments, pilot delivery, Korean BD hire, SI partner enablement
Korea operations & hiring
Office (Songdo / Suwon), payroll setup, recruiting
Legal, IP & compliance
Patent #2, PCT extension, trademarks, SOC 2 Type II, K-ISMS preparation, contracts
Six stages — from aPlanner to the full chain
Long-term direction only. Today we build step one, aPlanner, in Korea.
| Stage | Years | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Bootstrap | 2026–2027 | aPlanner MVP, OASIS-6, incorporation, first pilot |
| Launch | 2028–2029 | Korean customers, aMonitor, platform MVP |
| Scale Up | 2030–2032 | Full MAKE pillar, APAC from Korea |
| Scale Out | 2033–2035 | MOVE / SELL / DELIGHT pillars, new markets |
| Growth Up | 2036–2038 | Category leadership |
| Globalization | 2039+ | Global enterprise |
Interested in learning more?
We are engaging with Korean angels, accelerators and TIPS operators who understand manufacturing. The OASIS-6 IR deck will be available after December 2026.