South Korean chip developer AI Rebellions has raised a $22.8 million (KRW 30 billion) extension to its Series A funding from strategic investor KT, one of China’s largest telecommunications companies. South Korea.
Last month, TechCrunch reported that Rebellions closed a $50 million financing that valued the company at around $283 million. At that time, Rebellions CEO and co-founder Sunghyun Park told TechCrunch that the startup closed its first Series A, which was oversubscribed, in less than three months from financial investors.
The Pavilion Capital-backed AI chipmaker has raised approximately $72.8 million (KRW 92 billion) in total Series A funding, bringing its total funding to approximately $102.8 million since its inception in 2020.
The Rebellions spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company plans to use the extension cycle to mass-produce its second prototype AI chip, ATOM, which will be used for large enterprises in the cloud and data center industry. data.
KT says it wants to develop AI chips such as NPU (neural processing unit) which will be used for data centers, autonomous vehicles and fintech.
This is the second strategic investment KT has made with AI chipmakers in South Korea as part of its efforts to accelerate the AI semiconductor business. Ku also said in a prepared statement that KT would continue to invest in startups in a difficult investment environment.
Competition for AI chips is heating up as companies, including big tech giants like Nvidia, Intel, Google and Apple, develop competing products. Intel acquired Habana Labs, an Israeli startup developing an AI chipmaker for data centers, in 2019.
The global AI chip market is expected to reach $194.9 billion by 2030, from $8.02 billion in 2021, according to the AI chip market outlook report.
“AI semiconductor is one of the next big technologies,” KT CEO Hyeon-Mo Ku said in a prepared statement. “Through the partnership with KT, we hope Rebellions will become a global fabless company like NVIDIA and Qualcomm.”
Rebellions is also currently in talks with potential customers in the financial industry to secure its first AI chip, ION, which launched in November 2021.
“We look forward to collaborating with KT, an industry leader in cloud and internet data centers, and the strategic partnership will drive new growth and business for Rebellions,” Park said in the release.
Investors participating in Rebellions Series A include Temasek’s Pavilion Capital, Korea Development Bank, SV Investment, Mirae Asset Capital, KT Investment and Kakao Ventures.
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