- FuriosaAI raises $125 million in Series C funding to expand the production of its RNGD AI accelerator and scale its operations
- FuriosaAI’s RNGD chip achieved 2.25x better performance than GPUs in LLM inference, winning a design win with LG AI Research
- Industry veterans Jeehoon Kang and Youngjin Cho join Furiosa to lead research and hardware development efforts
FuriosaAI, a semiconductor company focused on developing high-performance AI chips, has raised $125 million in a Series C bridge funding round. The investment will help the company scale the production of its RNGD AI accelerator, a chip designed to solve the power and cost inefficiencies of legacy GPU-based systems used for AI workloads.
The funding round comes on the heels of a significant design win with LG AI Research. The RNGD chip was shown to deliver 2.25 times better LLM (Large Language Model) inference performance per watt compared to GPUs, cementing its position as a cutting-edge solution for AI applications. Furiosa’s expansion plans also include scaling up its production and accelerating the development of its next-generation AI chip.
FuriosaAI receives strategic leadership hires to drive growth
FuriosaAI has also strengthened its leadership team with two notable hires: Jeehoon Kang, a leading expert in parallel systems from KAIST, has been appointed as Chief Research Officer to focus on compiler and software architecture, while Youngjin Cho, a former Corporate Vice President at Samsung Electronics, joins as Vice President of Hardware to lead chip development. These additions come as Furiosa looks to drive innovation in AI hardware and software and accelerate the global deployment of its technologies.
CEO June Paik emphasized that the company’s mission is to create a sustainable AI ecosystem by reducing the dependence on power-hungry GPUs, which are causing both environmental and economic issues. “With this new funding, we aim to provide a powerful yet efficient foundation for AI that will be both economically and environmentally sustainable,” Paik said.
Growing investor confidence and future outlook
The Series C round saw participation from new and existing investors, including the Korea Development Bank, Industrial Bank of Korea, Keistone Partners, and Kakao Investment. Investors believe that FuriosaAI has the potential to revolutionize AI compute. “Furiosa has the proven architecture innovation and software maturity to deliver new solutions for scaling AI compute,” said Yoon D. Kang, CEO of PI Partners.
With this investment, FuriosaAI plans to accelerate the mass production of RNGD and continue its work on developing the next-generation AI chip. Since its founding in 2017, the company has raised $246 million and is currently valued at $735 million.
