Naver's venture investment arm D2SF said Tuesday that it has made a new investment in SAZO, a cross-border commerce startup built on agentic artificial intelligence (AI).
SAZO is a startup that has developed a "cross-border commerce infrastructure" in which AI agents automatically handle everything from shipping cost and tariff prediction to translation, pricing, payment, and customs clearance required for purchasing overseas products. Naver D2SF decided to invest after noting that SAZO is a team that has proven its business viability by securing transaction volume and partnerships in the Korean and Japanese markets.
SAZO uses agentic AI to resolve the information asymmetry and complex purchasing procedures that arise when users access overseas commerce services. SAZO predicts shipping costs, tariffs, and fees with approximately 95% accuracy, and enables AI agents to automatically carry out the entire transaction, including product translation, local pricing, payment, and customs clearance. Through this, consumers can purchase overseas products in a manner similar to domestic shopping, while platforms and sellers can also expand their sales regions without the burden of separate system development or overseas inventory.
SAZO operates a cross-border service connecting Korea and Japan, and its monthly transaction volume has grown approximately sevenfold over the past six months. It has secured partnerships with domestic and international commerce platforms including Mercari, Rakuten, and Bunjang. In 2025, it attracted strategic investment from Japan Post Capital, a venture capital firm under the Japan Post Group, which holds Japan's largest cross-border logistics infrastructure. It currently operates services in Korea, the United States, and Japan, and plans to expand the number of countries served to grow into a global cross-border agentic commerce infrastructure.
CEO Gil Ma-ro is an entrepreneur in his 20s who founded SAZO in 2023 while studying in Japan on a government scholarship. Building on this investment, he is expanding brand and platform partners to jointly target the global market, while actively recruiting talent to build it together.
Yang Sang-hwan, head of Naver D2SF, said, "Cross-border commerce is a market that goes beyond exposing products overseas, requiring the connection of different language, payment, logistics, and customs systems across countries into a single purchasing experience." He added, "SAZO is currently discussing various forms of collaboration with Naver Shopping, and we expect it can provide users with a more convenient overseas product purchasing experience, and sellers and creators with opportunities to expand their overseas sales channels."
