Follow-on Investment Attracts Private Equity Participation
Renegade Supplied to LG Exaone
Aiming Directly at the Global Enterprise Market
Funds to Be Used for Renegade Mass Production and Third-Generation Development
FuriosaAI, an artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor company, announced on the 31st that it has raised a total of 170 billion won in its Series C bridge round. With this achievement, FuriosaAI has surpassed a corporate valuation of 1 trillion won, joining the ranks of unicorn companies.
Startup investment typically begins with 'seed funding' and progresses through Series A, B, and C rounds. At each stage, companies are evaluated for their growth and business maturity, which encourages participation from institutional investors.
Having reached the Series C bridge round, FuriosaAI conducted this round based on a 'pre-money valuation' of 830 billion won, with participation from approximately 40 institutions. Major investors included the state-run Korea Development Bank (30 billion won), Industrial Bank of Korea (10 billion won) and its affiliates IBK Securities (6 billion won) and IBK Venture Investment (5 billion won), as well as Eugene-Growth Finance Fund (11.6 billion won). Other participants included private equity firms such as Keystone Partners (20 billion won), PI Partners (13.2 billion won), Daesung Startup Investment (5 billion won), and Kakao Investment (3 billion won).
FuriosaAI has demonstrated steady market confidence and expectations by raising an amount in this single Series C bridge round equivalent to the total cumulative investment it had secured over the past seven years, from seed funding through Series C. Existing investors participated again, reaffirming their unwavering trust in FuriosaAI. New investors such as Keystone Partners, Nextrans, and Daesung Startup Investment also joined. Notably, private equity funds, which rarely invest in early-stage companies with high technological and market risks, participated with a combined investment of 40 billion won. FuriosaAI interpreted this as a sign that the capital market recognizes the technological and commercial viability of its products, marking its transition to a growth-stage company.
As the generative AI market seeks alternatives to reduce its reliance on Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs), global interest in FuriosaAI is indeed growing. This month, FuriosaAI successfully entered the enterprise market by supplying its second-generation AI semiconductor 'Renegade' to LG AI Research's large language model (LLM) 'Exaone.' During the selection process for supply, Renegade met LG's high-performance requirements and demonstrated 2.25 times higher performance per watt compared to existing GPUs.
FuriosaAI plans to use the newly raised funds for mass production of Renegade and the initial development of its third-generation product. With Renegade's full-scale entry into the large enterprise market, it was necessary to secure a significant volume in advance. The company is also planning ambitious development and mass production of next-generation chips.
FuriosaAI CEO Baek Junho said, "This investment demonstrates the capital market's strong confidence in our technology and vision at a critical time as we enter mass production of Renegade," adding, "We will definitely expand our sales to global enterprise customers." He also noted, "The government's policy to expand venture capital for AI startup scale-ups is very encouraging," emphasizing, "For Korea to join the United States and China as an AI G3 powerhouse, securing global competitiveness in AI semiconductors is not just a goal but a mission we must accomplish."
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