NAVER D2SF Continues Support of AI Semiconductor Startup FuriosaAI
NAVER D2SF Continues Support of AI Semiconductor Startup FuriosaAI
NAVER D2SF Continues Support of AI Semiconductor Startup FuriosaAI
- FuriosaAI secures USD 63 million (KRW 80 billion) in Series B funding round, the largest investment among Korean semiconductor startups
- With Series B follow-on investment, NAVER expects to work with FuriosaAI to drive large-scale AI models
2021-06-01
NAVER D2 Startup Factory (D2SF) completed a second follow-on investment in FuriosaAI, a South Korea-based AI (artificial intelligence) chip startup. FuriosaAI raised USD 63 million (KRW 80 billion) in a Series B funding round, which is the largest investment attraction among Korean semiconductor startups.
FuriosaAI is developing semiconductors that can maximize AI performance in data centers and enterprise servers. It is designing an AI chip that is optimized for inferring results from a trained model, and has received a lot of attention in the industry with its excellent compiler software and hardware design technology. FuriosaAI was the only Asian startup to successfully submit results to MLPerf inference benchmark — a global AI chip benchmark competition — in 2019, and proved its superior technology by winning first place in the image classification and object detection category.
As the first investor of FuriosaAI, NAVER D2SF has supported the startup’s business growth since its early development in 2017. With NAVER D2SF’s seed investment, FuriosaAI has been in touch with NAVER’s various technology units, such as autonomous driving, robotics, AI, cloud and video, and is discussing cooperation to drive large-scale AI models and apply them to real-world services.
“FuriosaAI is the top AI semiconductor technology company in Korea that has gained the support of D2SF and various technology units at NAVER. With its excellent technological capabilities, FuriosaAI is expected to create various synergies with NAVER in fields, such as NAVER’s hyperscale AI HyperCLOVA, robotics, autonomous driving, video and cloud,” said Yang Sang-hwan, leader of NAVER D2 Startup Factory. “As global technology companies accelerate investment in big AI models, AI chips with large-capacity computing power will become an essential infrastructure.”
Paik June, CEO of Furiosa AI, said, “Using this funding as a stepping stone, we plan to launch the most competitive AI chip in the global market. To successfully lead the development of the next-generation chip that we plan to launch in the second half of 2022, we will actively recruit global talent and further strengthen our team’s technical capabilities.”
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