Fabless Startup 'Padu' Valued at 1.08 Trillion Won Investment... Achieves Unicorn Status

Semiconductor fabless startup FADU announced on the 27th that it has completed a pre-IPO (pre-listing equity investment) with a corporate valuation of 1.08 trillion KRW. With this, FADU became the first domestic fabless startup to achieve unicorn status.

The investment included participation from existing investor Forest Partners and new investor IBK Capital. Due to strong demand, the amount raised exceeded the initially planned amount by 20%, closing at approximately 12 billion KRW.

FADU stated, "Despite the recent challenging capital market environment, especially the severe funding winter for startups, we were highly evaluated as the only domestic fabless company designing semiconductors that has clearly demonstrated business performance in the global market."

FADU has developed its flagship product, SSD (Solid State Drive) controllers for data centers, and the SSD product line equipped with these controllers, securing numerous customers mainly among data centers and major big tech companies in the United States.

Last year's revenue sharply increased to the high 50 billion KRW range compared to the previous year (5.1 billion KRW), and it achieved a turnaround to profitability with an operating profit of 4 billion KRW.

From this year, revenue and profit realization are expected to accelerate. The number of employees, which was 170 in July last year, has rapidly expanded to about 230 as of this month, intensifying growth.

FADU selected NH Investment & Securities as the lead underwriter and Korea Investment & Securities as the co-underwriter early last year, and proceeded with a technology evaluation for a special listing, receiving AA and A grades in the second half of last year, thereby officially preparing for listing.

Founded in July 2015, fabless startup FADU is a system semiconductor company specialized in data centers. Its first product line and current core business is the data center SSD business. It has attracted significant interest from global companies due to its high performance in terms of low power consumption and low heat generation.