Jacob Chanyeol Choi, co-founder and CEO of LinqAlpha / Courtesy of LinqAlpha

Innovation driven by generative artificial intelligence (AI) has amazed the world with its capabilities. But many agree that human oversight is still necessary to handle real-world tasks effectively.

However, at least in the hedge fund industry, that belief may be short-lived. The catalyst behind this shift is LinqAlpha, a Boston-based startup developing bespoke AI solutions to streamline investment research for hedge fund analysts.

"Our goal is to create a service that can handle every task in the hedge fund industry as if these firms had dozens of interns," Jacob Chanyeol Choi, the co-founder and CEO of LinqAlpha, said in an interview with The Korea Times at the firm's Korea office.

In 2022, Choi co-founded the startup with Pang Su-been, shortly after earning a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The firm later welcomed two additional co-founders: Choi Ho-jun, a former Goldman banker, and Kim Jin, a quant researcher.

LinqAlpha offers an AI system that integrates up-to-date information — such as public disclosures, CEO statements and social media trends — with a proprietary search technology recognized by the AI community.

A demo page of LinqAlpha's AI chatbot, showing search results for "NVIDIA guidance after the latest earnings call" / Courtesy of LinqAlpha

This allows hedge fund analysts, who are always pressed for time, to obtain highly selective and relevant information, increasing their chances of generating alpha. The AI also streamlines daily tasks, such as scheduling and summarizing earnings reports and transcripts.

"Before the age of generative AI, hedge funds outside the quant world were fighting the market with sticks and stones," Choi said. "LinqAlpha is revolutionizing the way that analysts work, especially at hedge funds that have been struggling to keep up with the explosion of unstructured data, including PDF, PPT (PowerPoint), Word (document), etc."

Choi explained that LinqAlpha's edge lies in integrating hedge fund analysts' work style into its AI.

Its chatbot, for instance, always cites credible sources when pulling financial figures and uses appropriate financial abbreviations when writing reports, reducing the need for secondary edits. The startup also works closely with each client company to provide tailored services.

In the process, LinqAlpha even introduced a new role to the industry, called the fundamental research engineer. With a hybrid skill set of financial expertise and engineering, they built AI models that can think and reason like human analysts.

"Analysts need AI that understands financial context, structured investment logic and could adapt to real-world workflows," Choi said. "We are collaborating with top financial experts to translate their extensive industry expertise into our AI system."

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The venture capital industry was quick to recognize LinqAlpha's potential. Last June, in a seed round led by Atinum Investment and InterVest, with participation from TechStars, Kakao Ventures, Yellowdog and Smilegate Investment, the startup secured $6.6 million.

The firm's service is also gaining traction in the U.S. market. Since the end of 2024, the startup has begun monetizing its business model, with several major banks and hedge funds adopting its service and making payments.

However, Choi recalled that LinqAlpha's journey has not always been smooth. He pivoted 10 times before arriving at this business model. The company's predecessor, developed during his time at MIT, was an AI for medical imaging. Various other services were tested along the way, including AI solutions for lawyers and insurance firms.

"We eventually settled on targeting hedge funds because they invest in public markets, which gives us greater access to relevant data. Additionally, their smaller organizational size allows for faster decision-making while maintaining strong purchasing power," Choi said.

Looking ahead, LinqAlpha plans to expand into financial hubs beyond the U.S. and Asia, including London, Dubai and Abu Dhabi — regions experiencing a significant influx of new capital. In terms of assets, the company aims to go beyond equities to cover credit, macro, commodities, real estate and other asset classes that can benefit from generative AI.

Choi argues that new entrants in the large language model space, such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek, no longer possess standalone business value.

"The trend has moved to vertical AI — tailor-made solutions designed to solve specific challenges in specialized industries," Choi said. "LinqAlpha is one of the vertical AI solutions, and we're striving to become the global No. 1 in the hedge fund industry."