FuriosaAI, a semiconductor company working to establish a new foundation for AI computing, has completed a $125 million Series C bridge funding round with support from investors including the Korea Development Bank and Kakao Investment.
This funding reflects growing demand for efficient AI infrastructure. Recently, Furiosa achieved a significant design win with LG AI Research, adopting its RNGD (pronounced “Renegade”) AI accelerator, which offers 2.25 times better LLM inference performance per watt than traditional GPUs.
To fuel further growth, Furiosa has strengthened its executive team, appointing Jeehoon Kang as Chief Research Officer and Youngjin Cho as Vice President of Hardware. Kang will lead compiler and software architecture development, while Cho will accelerate chip development.
Although demand for AI computing is rising, many companies struggle to scale applications due to the high power consumption and costs of legacy GPU hardware. Furiosa aims to address these issues by rethinking the AI hardware and software stack.
The new funding will help accelerate the mass production of the RNGD AI accelerator and support the development of the next-generation chip. Since its founding in 2017, Furiosa has raised a total of $246 million and is currently valued at $735 million.
KEY QUOTES:
“AI today is dependent on a broken business model, where the infrastructure costs and constraints of power-hungry GPUs are a critical, rapidly worsening roadblock. We’re committed to solving this so that AI is truly sustainable – not just environmentally but economically as well.”
“This funding allows us to deliver a new foundation for AI that is both powerful and efficient. We are grateful for the confidence our investors have shown in FuriosaAI and our vision to make AI sustainable, and thus accessible for everyone. With two world-class technical leaders – Professor Kang in compiler and software architecture and Dr. Cho in silicon hardware – joining Furiosa, we will scale RNGD production globally and accelerate the development of our next-generation chip.”
Furiosa co-founder and CEO June Paik
“The world urgently needs new solutions to scale AI compute, and we believe Furiosa is one of the very few companies with the proven architecture innovation and software maturity to deliver. With the success of Furiosa’s RNGD chip and the significant design win with LG AI Research, June and his leadership team have demonstrated their ability to deliver on their audacious vision for transforming AI computing. We are thrilled to deepen our partnership as they enter their next phase of growth.”
Yoon D. Kang, CEO of PI Partners
“FuriosaAI has built an exciting alternative to GPUs for AI inference. Their architecture delivers the performance and power efficiency that is critical for the next wave of AI applications. They have the right technology and the right team to transform AI hardware, and we are excited to help fuel their growth.”
Kakao Investment CEO Do-Young Kim
