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AI (artificial intelligence) semiconductor startup FuriosaAI announced on the 29th that it has secured Series D investment of 820 billion won. The pre-money corporate valuation was 3 trillion won, and the post-money corporate valuation was assessed at approximately 3.8 trillion won.
FuriosaAI began its fundraising campaign in January this year with a target of raising between 450 billion and 750 billion won. As interest from domestic and international investors continued, the amount raised exceeded the initial target. According to the company, the 820 billion won is the largest investment ever secured by a domestic startup.
The largest investor is the National Growth Fund, which invested 370 billion won. Among overseas investors, US-based Infinitum contributed the largest amount. Infinitum co-led Groq's $650 million investment round in June last month. Founder and Chief Investment Officer (CIO) John Yetimeoglou also serves on Groq's board of directors.
In addition, Singapore's QUDA Capital Partners, Cisco Investment, Abu Dhabi's NeoFort Holding, and US-based Jericho Capital and Worldline Capital have newly joined the round. Charlie Fu, Managing Partner who founded QUDA, previously served as Vice President of Asia-Pacific Enterprise Business at NVIDIA and currently serves as a senior advisor to FuriosaAI.
Existing investors also made follow-on investments totaling 170 billion won. The Korea Development Bank added 300 billion won, and seed investors Naver, DSC Investment, and KDB Capital all participated as well. DSC Investment has participated in every round since its seed investment in 2017.
Naver initially made a seed investment through NAVER D2SF and this time proceeded with follow-on investment via Silicon Valley-based Naver Ventures. Nexttrans contributed the largest amount among follow-on investors at 48 billion won, and Kakao Investment also participated. The two companies became shareholders in last year's Series C bridge round and invested again just one year later. Early shareholders such as Quantum Ventures, Korea Investment Partners, and Intellectual Discovery also made follow-on investments.
There are also new domestic investors. The Export-Import Bank of Korea selected FuriosaAI as the first venture company to receive direct investment since its establishment. UAMCO invested 400 billion won, making it the largest among new domestic investors, and Hanwha Asset Management, which operates a deep tech-focused fund, also joined.
FuriosaAI plans to use these funds to expand production and supply capabilities for its second-generation AI semiconductor 'RNGD (Renegade),' broaden its global customer base, and strengthen its software ecosystem.
RNGD entered mass production in January this year. The company is conducting technical verification and commercialization cooperation with the LG AI Research Institute, and Samsung SDS has launched NPUaaS based on RNGD.
It is also being supplied to actual service environments, such as Upstage using RNGD for its next (Daum) search summary service. The third-generation AI accelerator being developed in collaboration with Broadcom targets the hyperscale AI infrastructure market, with plans to enhance performance, power efficiency, and system scalability.
CIO Yetimeoglou evaluated, "Very few companies have successfully led advanced AI semiconductors from design to mass production," adding, "FuriosaAI has demonstrated its commercialization capabilities by introducing RNGD into actual service environments such as Samsung SDS and the LG Group." Park Yong-jung, General Partner at Naver Ventures, stated, "FuriosaAI is at a stage where it is transitioning from proving its technology to proving its business."
Baek Jun-ho, CEO of FuriosaAI, revealed, "Now is the time to actively expand our developed technology into the global AI infrastructure market," adding, "We will present new options in the AI infrastructure market with high-performance, high-efficiency AI semiconductors."
[MoneyToday Startup Media Platform Unicorn Factory]
in FUTURE
