Seoul, South Korea – November 4, 2026 – StepHow Inc., a South Korean enterprise AI knowledge-management company, today announced that it will showcase its document-based AI agent platform, Wissly, along with its expanded on-premise product lineup at Web Summit 2026 in Lisbon, Portugal, establishing a strategic bridgehead for the European market.
A New Paradigm in Enterprise Knowledge Management
Founded in January 2024, StepHow Inc. was established to solve the chronic challenge of enterprise data fragmentation. The company was co-founded by CEO Hwang Seong-wook, a serial entrepreneur with an investment and M&A background; CPO Choi Jun-ho, an AI specialist trained at KAIST; and CTO Cha Ji-hyeong, a seasoned full-stack developer with a decade of engineering leadership.
While enterprise generative AI adoption is accelerating globally, large organizations face significant operational risks related to data leaks, hallucinations, and intellectual property exposure. Wissly transforms unstructured, scattered internal data into actionable business intelligence through a secure on-premises architecture. Backed by seed investments from Antler, Mashup Ventures, and The Ventures, StepHow has supplied its solutions to more than 100 enterprise and public sector clients within two years of operation.
Proprietary Technology and Scalable Architecture
Wissly combines agentic Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with deep enterprise ontology modeling to deliver high-precision intelligence across legacy data silos.
• Agentic RAG & Ontology Modeling: Rather than relying on simple semantic matching, Wissly deconstructs complex corporate queries into modular sub-tasks, performs multi-step search and reasoning across relational graphs, and autonomously cross-verifies results.
• Broad Enterprise Ingestion: The platform seamlessly connects files stored on local PCs, shared network folders, and NAS devices—including Excel, PowerPoint, Word, HWP, and scanned PDF files via advanced OCR—while integrating directly with enterprise ERP and groupware environments.
• Deterministic Traceability: Every generated answer is paired directly with verifiable citations, displaying the original document excerpt and file path to eliminate AI hallucinations.
• Air-Gapped Security Architecture: Customer data is strictly protected and never utilized for external model training. The platform operates completely within air-gapped, on-premise environments, meeting rigorous compliance standards reinforced by ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 27001 certifications obtained in June 2026.
Expanded Lineup at Web Summit 2026
At Web Summit 2026, StepHow is introducing an expanded suite of on-premise AI solutions tailored for security-conscious institutions:
• Wissly: The flagship enterprise AI agent for document search, cross-departmental data synthesis, comparative analysis, and automated report generation.
• Wissly Code: A private AI coding agent that generates, reviews, and runs code utilizing a local Large Language Model (LLM) deployed entirely on internal servers, keeping intellectual property shielded while adhering to existing corporate CI/CD pipelines.
• Wissly-in-a-Box: A turnkey on-premise appliance that integrates enterprise-grade hardware and Wissly’s software stack into a single pre-configured deployment unit, slashing implementation timelines for organizations requiring complete physical isolation.
Proven Track Record Across Heavy Industry and Public Sectors
StepHow has established references across manufacturing, retail, construction, and public sectors, serving clients including CJ Olive Young, BGF Retail, Dongsuh Foods, Pulmuone, Hoban Construction, Taeyoung E&C, Stemco, KAIST, and the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity. Through open-innovation partnerships with DB HiTek and DB Insurance, the company validated large-scale enterprise data unification.
In a landmark engagement with marine environmental equipment manufacturer Techcross, StepHow integrated over 50,000 complex technical documents—including engineering blueprints, quality inspection reports, and process maintenance logs—into Wissly. The platform successfully automated similar-project retrieval, quality anomaly analysis, and maritime regulatory compliance reviews, leading to StepHow’s selection as a key technology provider under the Ulsan Information Industry Promotion Agency’s AI voucher program.
Globally, StepHow operates a U.S. corporate subsidiary that has generated commercial software revenue since early 2025, supplying Wissly to U.S. logistics firm KT Express. In Europe, the company validated public sector data processing through a civic data pilot project with the Tallinn City Government in Estonia.
“Enterprises around the world are struggling to unlock their internal data due to severe privacy, compliance, and hallucination concerns,” said Hwang Seong-wook, CEO of StepHow Inc. “With Wissly, we have proven that organizations can achieve deep AI automation across hundreds of thousands of internal records without exposing a single byte of sensitive data. Web Summit 2026 provides the ideal stage to introduce our verified on-premise agent platform to European enterprises seeking sovereign, trustworthy AI infrastructure.”
European Market Expansion and Strategic Road Ahead
Building on the civic validation completed with Tallinn City Government, StepHow is actively expanding into the European Union, where stringent data protection frameworks, including the EU AI Act and GDPR, drive strong demand for secure, local-host AI infrastructure.
During Web Summit 2026, StepHow will conduct live demonstration sessions using real-world enterprise documents, engaging with system integrators (SIs), IT consultancies, hardware resellers, and institutional investors to expand its European partner distribution network. Currently pursuing a Series A funding round, StepHow plans to leverage its U.S. and European footholds to accelerate entry into the broader APAC market, establishing Wissly as a global benchmark for secure enterprise knowledge agents.
About StepHow Inc.
Founded in January 2024, StepHow Inc. is an enterprise AI knowledge-management software company that develops Wissly, an agentic RAG and ontology-powered AI platform that enables secure, on-premise document search, reasoning, and analysis. Headquartered in Seoul with a corporate subsidiary in the United States, StepHow serves more than 100 enterprise and government clients across manufacturing, finance, and consumer sectors, driving sovereign digital transformation without external data exposure.
Press Contact
Hwang Seong-wook, CEO & Co-Founder
StepHow Inc.
Email: ceo@stephow.me
Phone: +82-10-6679-5819
Website: https://www.wissly.ai/en
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