Arena secures ₩270 billion investment to expand AI safety evaluation
October 13, 2026 · 2 min read
Also published in Italiano
Arena, an AI model evaluation platform, has raised ₩270 billion in Series B funding, increasing its valuation to ₩4 trillion. The investment is expected to facilitate its expansion into measuring AI safety and reliability through the 'Alignment Index'.
According to reports, this funding round was co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Khosla Ventures, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, 01 Advisors, Endeavor Catalyst, a16z, and Felicis. After raising ₩200 billion in Series A funding earlier this year, Arena's valuation has nearly doubled within ten months.
With the new investment, Arena plans to enhance its services beyond simple performance comparisons, focusing on customized evaluation services based on specific corporate data. The platform, which began as the Chatbot Arena research project at the University of California, Berkeley, allows users to compare the quality of responses from various AI models.
Arena aims to assess whether AI models perform tasks safely while adhering to user intentions. The 'Alignment Index' will measure how well AI models follow instructions across various tasks, including coding. Evaluation criteria will include unauthorized actions and misattributions of information.
In June, Arena reported an annual recurring revenue of ₩130 billion, with millions of users visiting the platform monthly. The initial alignment ranking shows that OpenAI's models performed well, with 'GPT-6.1 Sol' taking first place.
Arena emphasized the need for a neutral third party to evaluate how safe AI is for actual users and how well it aligns with human intentions, highlighting the rapid advancement of AI technology compared to evaluation methods.