Apollo Studio: Wowing developers with an AI-native engine

When will AI truly revolutionize gaming industry?

Many expect AI to radically transform the gaming industry. Tech giants and startups from the US to China are attempting to integrate AI into games, and in Korea, a global gaming powerhouse, we're seeing exciting challenges like AI-native NPCs and asset generation every day.

But so far, this movement hasn't shown the same level of impact as, say, "vibe coding" has in the broader software industry. There are many reasons, but a core one is this: 80% of a game—the 3D models, textures, and scenes—remains trapped in a black box that AI cannot access.

True innovation begins when we build a new system from the ground up, one where AI can natively understand, modify, and place every element within a scene. It means co-creating complex AAA worlds with AI. This is the most technically difficult challenge, but it's also the one with the greatest potential impact. The team we're introducing today, Apollo Studio, has chosen to take on this seemingly impossible challenge.

First meeting: 8-figure exit wasn't enough for him

Our first meeting with Apollo Studio started with a LinkedIn DM. The profile of its founder, Sungmin Cho—former engineer at Goldman Sachs & Citadel, then founder of a startup which he exited for an 8-figure sum—was concise but impressive. As we'll detail, Sungmin has a massive vision to solve hard technical problems and make a truly global impact.

Our first question was obvious: "You know how hard this path is. Why are you, of all people, doing another grueling venture?" An 8-figure exit signifies financial freedom for most. It's a blessing that allows you to finally do what you truly want, to be completely honest with yourself. So why go back, and with an even bigger vision? His answer was clear: the impact he's chasing is at the multi billion dollar level, and while he's grateful for his small success, it's virtually meaningless in the face of that larger goal.

At the same time, this is what Sungmin truly wants to do. We learned he's a real game enthusiast who had already built a game studio back in high school. He's a player who genuinely loves games. And now, the members joining him for this massive challenge are the same top-tier developer friends he's been building and playing games with since those early days—a team bound by proven trust in both character and skill.

Unyielding ambition, genuine passion for creating a next generation game engine, and a proven team to make it real—I felt we might have found the "crazy dreamer" founder that BASS is always searching for.

Vision: The 'Vercel' experience for creators, an endless 'Reels' game feed for players

The global game market is where AI's impact is most anticipated. It can streamline labor-intensive, grueling production processes and, like AI NPCs, create entirely new experiences. Yet, unlike the software industry, gaming hasn't seen an immediate surge in productivity. That's because, unlike most software, code only accounts for 20-30% of a game. The rest is visual and auditory assets—3D models, textures, sounds—that AI struggles to handle directly.

Sure, there are many attempts to build AI assistants on top of existing engines like Unity and Unreal (a 'Cursor for Game'). But this approach has clear limitations. Legacy engines weren't designed for AI; they are fundamentally "black boxes" to it. When you tell an AI to "plant a tree," it can't just generate code. It needs to understand the scene's terrain and its relationship to other objects to place it appropriately. But these engines weren't built to communicate with AI in real-time. The pathways for an AI to understand the scene's structure and take direct control are essentially blocked. The AI is left to make educated guesses based on documentation, likely generating a pile of red-lined, uncompilable code.

The only way to solve this problem is to rebuild an "AI-native" engine from the ground up . This engine is designed to allow AI to see, understand, and directly deploy entire scenes and resources, making it the easiest engine for AI to understand and use. Furthermore, if we can build an ecosystem around it and provide a distribution platform, it becomes possible for a single person to be tenfold more productive. This will truly be a moment of developer excitement. AAA game studios can develop with unprecedented resources, and even non-experts can create and distribute hyper-casual games with the ease of "vibe coding."

But the real vision BASS is betting on isn't just cost savings. We're focused on the market explosion that this ‘democratization of game creation’ will unleash. Just as the democratization of video in the 2000s created the YouTuber (which has now become the no.1 dream job for kids) and a massive UGC ecosystem, we believe the democratization of gaming has the potential to trigger an unimaginable content explosion. ‘Efficiency’ within a fixed pie has a clear ceiling. But creating ‘more joy’ has a limitless upside. Look at how humanity's content consumption time exploded as we moved from text to images, and again to short-form video.

As AI liberates humanity from knowledge work, a creative void will open, and a desire to fill that void will explode. We suspect that Apollo Studio is building the master key to unlock that massive trend.

Team: Assembled on a bedrock of trust

A grand vision only gains life when it meets a team capable of executing it. The team at Apollo Studio has a level of individual excellence and, more importantly, a density of trust-based cohesion that is rare in any early-stage team.

This isn't a new team. Centered around CEO Cho Sung-min, the Apollo Studio team consists of colleagues who were classmates at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who founded and exited startups together, colleagues who built a game studio together in high school, and colleagues who, despite being apart, shared their business dreams in the KakaoTalk group "Business Room."

A previously successful founding team re-teaming? That was a strong positive signal. But it also gave us pause. Was this a true assembly of A-players, or just a 'friends and family' round of hiring? Would their deep personal ties lead to a lax, 'friendly' culture instead of a high-performance one? Would friendship prevent the candid feedback and hard decisions required to win?

But these concerns vanished after meeting the team and conducting reference checks with their former colleagues and friends. Every single member is a top-tier talent with deep development skills, business experience, and a genuine love for gaming. Their personalities also complemented each other perfectly, balancing business and tech, convergence and divergence. On top of this, their trust in each other's skills and character was already battle-tested. We saw no office politics or communication overhead. Instead, we saw a team with a clear, self-managing style that just worked.

This exceptional cohesion highlighted Sungmin's strong leadership. Former colleagues consistently cited his powerful business drive, sharp decision-making, and global-first mindset as key strengths. This leadership, already proven at previous startup journey, is the gravitational center holding this team of ‘friends’—a dynamic that could easily derail a team—together. Colleagues spoke informally and challenged ideas openly, but when a decision was made, they trusted Sungmin and followed without hesitation. In every interview, I could feel the team's deep respect for him and their profound trust in his decisions.

Betting first

Once we had full conviction in the people, we knew we couldn't let Apollo Studio go. We moved faster than anyone and were proud to commit as the first institutional investor in their pre-seed round.

1. The ‘Crazy Dream’ of an AI-Native Platform: They didn't take the easy path of building an AI assistant on a legacy engine. They chose the technically arduous path of building an AI-native engine from scratch, giving AI full control over scenes and resources. This is the only approach that can create the true innovation we discussed, and the only one that can deliver the scale of impact they are aiming for.

2. Cohesion and Tenacity Built on Deep Trust: They are individually brilliant but collectively humble, working horizontally but making decisions centrally. This structure, built on proven trust, enables extreme efficiency. The sheer velocity of their development and output in just the first few months proved this beyond a doubt.

3. 'Day 1 Global' in Their DNA: This team is aimed at the global market from inception, and they have the language skills and cultural fluency to do it. They are building a global platform from the soil of Korea's world-class gaming industry. Their past experiences in Hong Kong and the US-dominated global market make their ‘Day 1 Global’ plan feel inevitable, not just ambitious.

Epilogue: Because they are hard

President Kennedy famously said of the Apollo mission,

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

We are incredibly excited to support Apollo Studio's vision: a future where AI-native gaming makes AAA development 10x more efficient, where countless creators experience the 'delight' of Vercel, and where players are immersed in an endless, ‘Reels-like’ feed of new, joyful experiences.

BASS exists to back ‘crazy dreamers’ like the team at Apollo Studio. If you have an idea that can fundamentally shake the world, don't hesitate to knock on our door. BASS will be there with you.

Additional Note - BASS Ventures 2026 First Half Investment Review Team Intern Recruitment

Early-Stage VC BASS Ventures, which helps startups grow greatly
We're looking for talented individuals to join our Investment Review Team as interns in the first half of 2026!

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Number of applicants: 1 person

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Document deadline: ~23:59, Tuesday, November 25, 2025

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Application Submission: https://slashpage.com/intern-recruit/26h1

By joining, you'll experience the entire VC investment process, from company meetings and research to full IR and investment reviews. You'll also work with the Growth Team to support early-stage startups and build and manage a network of university student entrepreneurs.

This role involves extensive authority and close collaboration with the CEO and the entire investment team. Those who proactively define and execute tasks will find this role a rewarding and enriching experience. For more information, please visit our recruitment website.

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