South Korean AI chipmaker FuriosaAI said on 29 October that it had raised 820 billion won in a Series D round, above its January target of 450 billion to 750 billion won, at an approximately 3.8 trillion won post-money valuation, MoneyToday reported. The financing gives the company capital to expand production and supply of RNGD, its second-generation AI chip.
Key points
- The National Growth Fund invested 370 billion won, the largest commitment in the round.
- Existing shareholders invested 170 billion won, including follow-on funding from FuriosaAI’s three seed investors.
- RNGD is in mass production and is being used in services from Samsung SDS and Upstage.
National Growth Fund leads the 820 billion won round
FuriosaAI was valued at 3 trillion won before the investment and approximately 3.8 trillion won afterward. The National Growth Fund committed 370 billion won, more than any other investor. Its management deliberation committee approved the investment on 28 May, The Asia Business Daily reported.
Founder and chief executive June Paik discussed the round and FuriosaAI’s growth plans in an interview on Bloomberg: The Asia Trade on 29 October. Bloomberg put the financing at $620 million and the valuation at $2.9 billion, describing the latter as four times its previous level.
Existing shareholders contributed 170 billion won in follow-on investments. All three seed investors — Naver, DSC Investment and KDB Capital — took part. Nexttrans invested 48 billion won, the largest amount among returning shareholders, while Kakao Investment also participated. Naver made its follow-on investment through Naver Ventures, having initially backed FuriosaAI through Naver D2SF.
Infinitum joins FuriosaAI’s overseas backers
US-based Infinitum supplied the largest commitment among overseas investors. It had also co-led a $650 million investment round for AI chip company Groq, MoneyToday reported. Other new participants in FuriosaAI’s round included Singapore’s QUDA Capital Partners, Cisco Investment, Abu Dhabi’s NeoFort Holding and US-based Jericho Capital and Worldline Capital.
New domestic investors included the Export-Import Bank of Korea, UAMCO and Hanwha Asset Management. For the first time in its history, the Export-Import Bank of Korea invested in a startup itself, backing FuriosaAI.
MoneyToday put the Korea Development Bank’s investment at 300 billion won and UAMCO’s at 400 billion won. The Asia Business Daily reported 30 billion won for the Korea Development Bank and 40 billion won for UAMCO.
RNGD moves into Samsung SDS and Upstage services
RNGD entered mass production in January. Samsung SDS has launched a service offering computing capacity based on the chip, while Upstage uses RNGD for search summaries on Daum. FuriosaAI has also been working with LG AI Research on technical validation and commercial use.
FuriosaAI plans to spend the new funding on increasing RNGD production and supply, gaining customers outside South Korea and strengthening its software ecosystem.
FuriosaAI is also developing a third-generation AI accelerator with Broadcom for large-scale AI infrastructure, The Asia Business Daily reported. The company plans improvements in performance, power efficiency and the ability to scale the system.
