AI plagiarism detection startup Muhayu eyes IPO in 2026

South Korean artificial intelligence (AI) startup Muhayu hired Mirae Asset Securities as the lead manager for its initial public offering (IPO) targeted for the first half of 2026, the company said on Wednesday.

This startup's flagship service Copy Killer is an AI-powered plagiarism detection tool used by 96% of South Korea's four-year universities and roughly 10 million users across 3,485 institutions, including public agencies, schools, research institutes, and businesses.

It has expanded its offerings, launching GPT Killer last year—the first South Korean solution to detect AI-generated sentences with over 95% accuracy.

The company also operates AI-powered HR solutions like Prism, an AI service that analyzes job applicants' self-introductions and documents, and Monster, an interactive AI interview platform.

It secured 15 billion won ($10.8 million) in pre-IPO funding in November 2023 and aims for global expansion, including China.

Its Japanese plagiarism service, Copy Monitor, launched in 2020, boasts over 220,000 users.

The company is focusing its R&D on developing evaluation automation services for educators and HR professionals, including assessments for expression specificity, language expressiveness, and validity testing.

Write to Joo-Wan Kim at kjwan@hankyung.com