Born in Italy and raised in a small town near Busan, South Korea, Hojun Choi's global perspective was shaped early through living in Seattle, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and now the United States. This third-culture kid has translated his international outlook into a vision for transforming financial analysis through artificial intelligence.

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As co-founder and CEO of LinqAlpha, Choi leads a team of Goldman Sachs alumni and MIT PhDs building what he describes as "a future AI analyst" for hedge funds, asset managers, and investment banks. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup has already secured 90+ global clients and raised $6.6 million in seed funding—an almost unheard-of amount for an Asian-founded startup.

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"We're an AI startup built to revolutionise finance using GenAI," Choi explains. "Last year, we outperformed NVIDIA, Google, and OpenAI in AI search precision."

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What sets LinqAlpha apart is its focus on hyperverticalisation—creating pre-configured workflows that understand the mental processes analysts use when evaluating investments. Their platform sifts through millions of documents to extract relevant information, then synthesises it into reports that would normally take hours to produce manually. It even serves as a "devil's advocate" to help investors overcome confirmation bias.

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Choi's journey to founding LinqAlpha wasn't straightforward. After graduating from Seoul National University with degrees in Business Administration and International Relations, he served as an intelligence analyst in the Republic of Korea Army before joining Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong. There, he specialised in asset-backed financing and strategic equity derivatives, regularly working 80-100 hour weeks—an experience that would later inspire his mission to create tools that enhance analyst productivity.

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After Goldman, Choi moved to Macquarie Group's infrastructure and real assets division before pivoting to entrepreneurship. His first venture was in legal technology, where he led Law&Good as President/CSO for two years, raising $6 million and launching Korea's first AI-powered legal research solution and data-driven litigation funding company.

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The idea for LinqAlpha emerged when Choi recognised that AI could transform how financial professionals handle the explosion of both structured and unstructured data. "Humans only have so much memory and attention span," he notes. "We really wanted to use GenAI to unleash the full human potential."

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Rather than replacing analysts entirely, Choi sees AI as elevating their roles: "It could replace junior jobs, but people will work at a more enhanced or elevated capacity." This vision extends beyond just productivity tools—Choi believes LinqAlpha could democratise investment capabilities, allowing talented analysts to set up their own shops supported by "an army of AI agents" rather than hiring large teams.

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Looking ahead, Choi plans to raise additional funding before the end of 2025 to capitalise on growing adoption among institutional investors. His long-term view balances optimism with pragmatism about AI's potential to transform work fundamentally.

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"I'm in between an optimist and a pessimist," he reflects. "Even if AI is better than me at building certain things, I'll still try to find that niche where I can be differentiated."

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For someone who once approached his career as a "linear optimization," Choi has embraced the uncertainty of entrepreneurship with remarkable success. His impact has been recognized by Forbes, which named him to their prestigious 30 Under 30 list in 2023. His advice to young graduates? "When there is so much uncertainty, taking an action is a better insight than anything else."

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