10 November 2025 — Crit Ventures USA, the U.S. subsidiary of Crit Ventures(CEO: Jaejoon Song), announced that it has made a strategic investment in Habitus Associates, the operator of the AI-native art platform “Artue” (CEO: Bo Young SONG). Following this investment, Crit Ventures USA becomes the second-largest shareholder of Habitus Associates based on the total value of its managed funds.

Launched in 2023 with the vision of becoming the ‘operating system (OS) of the art market in the AI era’, Artue is an AI-native art platform that understands users’ aesthetic preferences and recommends artworks through conversational, multimodal and emotion-based searches. The platform currently features over 540 artists and 4,000 artworks, with artist participation and artwork listings growing by 15% and 20% respectively over the past year — reflecting Artue’s rapidly expanding global reach and influence.

Artue has filed the world’s first patent for an AI-based art recommendation and discovery system, recognised as a pioneering case of technological standardisation in visualising artistic experience. This innovation was showcased as a featured example at the OpenAI Korea Launch Event. Additionally, Artue integrates blockchain-powered copyright protection, forgery verification and digital ownership management to build a trusted global infrastructure for art transactions. The company is now advancing initiatives for the tokenisation of physical artwork securities (STO) and the establishment of a global art investment fund.

To support these initiatives, Artue has entered into a technical partnership with CONX (ticker: XPLA), an STO blockchain platform involving Com2uS Holdings, to develop next-generation ArtTech financial infrastructure uniting AI, blockchain and digital assets.

A representative from Crit Ventures USA stated: ‘Artue is at the forefront of the digital transformation of the art industry, rapidly integrating cutting-edge technologies into the creative economy. As the AI sector shifts from general-purpose models towards domain-specific applications in content, design, and entertainment, Artue stands out as a leading example of this evolution”.

Bo Young SONG, CEO of Habitus Associates, added: ‘AI is redefining how people experience and engage with art. Together with Crit Ventures USA, we aim to establish the global standard user experience (UX) for technology-driven art markets and set a new benchmark for the digital art ecosystem where AI and art coexist”.

Meanwhile, Crit Ventures USA has recently opened an office in Palo Alto, following its expansion into Los Angeles. The company is actively supporting Korean start-ups in entering the North American market and expanding their global network.

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