Nvidia's soaring stock price last year has fueled an arms race among semiconductor startups from Silicon Valley to Seoul to raise more funds and tap into the fast-growing market for artificial intelligence chips. A four-year-old artificial intelligence chip startup in a South Korean semiconductor hub, run by a former Wall Street insider, recently gained momentum in a race for funding.
Rebellions, based in Seongnam, south of Seoul, announced last week that it had raised $124 million in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to $210 million, more than any other AI chip startup in South Korea. South. competitors,” Rebellions co-founder and CEO Sunghyun Park said in a video interview.
Its rivals include Seoul-based private equity firm Ascent Equity Partners (maker of Baby Shark Pinkfong), South Korea's GS Group and Sapeon, which last raised $45 million in July from investors including WE Ventures, whose portfolio includes South Korean companies. . rich list Cryptocurrency exchange operator Dunamu Song Chi Hyun. Another contender is FuriosaAI, which raised $70 million in Series B in 2021 from investors such as South Korean billionaire Lee Hye-jin's Naver-backed D2 Startup Factory. DSC Investment, an early backer of Seoul and Seattle-based chip startup MangoBoost; and Seoul-based Aion Asset Management.
MORE FROM FORBESSemiconductor startup raises $55M in Korean venture capital to help cloud companies counter AI boomJohn Kang
The Rebellions valued it at $650 million in their Series B round. "But the financial market is very negative right now. Interest rates are going up," added Park, who was a quantitative strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York before the turbulence of 2020. "So if we were in a normal market situation, we would definitely be a unicorn company."
Participating in the round were South Korean telecom operator KT, KT Cloud, KT's data center unit, and Shinhan Venture Investment, a division of banking giant Shinhan Financial Group. Other investors in this round include Temasek's Pavilion Capital, Korelya Capital, founded and led by former French digital economy minister Fleur Pellerin, who is ethnic Korean; A joint venture between Japan's DG Daiwa Ventures, broker Daiwa Securities Group and early-stage investor Digital Garage; and South Korean private equity firm Noh & Partners, whose portfolio companies include Forbes Asia 100 to Watch 2022 winner Seoul Robotics. Former
investors include Kakao Ventures, the venture capital arm of billionaire internet giant Kim Bum Soo Kakao; State Development Bank of Korea; SV Investment has backed companies such as Kakao, a South Korean venture capital firm, and Chunbo, a maker of electric vehicle components from South Korean tycoon Lee Sang-ryul; and IMM Investment, whose portfolio companies include billionaire Bom Kim's Coupang and Jang Byung-gyu's Krafton.
Investors like Rebellions for its team, which combines U.S. research and development expertise and South Korean manufacturing know-how, said Park, who has a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from MIT and previously worked in the Texas offices of SpaceX, Intel and Samsung. “We are the only AI chip company with this much talent,” he says. "That's why we get so much attention." For example, Rebellions co-founder and CTO Jinwook Oh worked at IBM in New York for six years and earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, one of South Korea's leading science and technology universities. MORE FROM
FORBESFORBES Asia teamto observe Forbes Asia 100 in 2023
Park and his team will use the funds raised in the latest round to develop a next-generation AI chip that can handle large languages and hyperscale models, which are major cloud computing service providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Pak says one of the advantages of the new chip, called Rebel, is that it is significantly cheaper than Nvidia's chips, which cost more than $30,000 each. "Our goal is to achieve half the price of Nvidia," he says. "Nvidia's margins are huge." The company, which has a market value of $1.6 trillion, posted a gross margin of 74% for the quarter ended October 29.
"If there is a Goliath, there will be a David. "I think one of David's candidates is a South Korean rebel."
The South Korean startup says it can reduce costs by using local suppliers and manufacturers : "By leveraging the Korean semiconductor ecosystem, we can significantly reduce production. "It should not be a global supply chain involving Taiwan and the United States, which requires a lot of time and money." For example, Nvidia, based in Santa Clara, California, primarily uses Taiwan's TSMC, one of the world's leading chip makers.
Specifically, Rebellions taps into the Samsung ecosystem. Samsung, led by billionaire Jay Yi Lee, is the world's largest memory chip maker. world and the only contract chipmaker other than TSMC capable of producing modern chips. Rebellions is co-developing Rebel with Samsung and will use the tech conglomerate's high-bandwidth memory chips and 4-nanometer chip manufacturing process. . "We have a close relationship with Samsung, so we can significantly reduce manufacturing costs," Park said. Rebellions and Samsung plan to complete development of the Rebel by the end of this year and begin mass production in 2025.
Thanks to a partnership with South Korea's largest company and backing from some of the country's largest investors, Park says that the rebels could confront the billionaire Jensen. Nvidia Huang. “Nvidia is the king right now. But nobody likes it, it has about 90% of the market, nobody likes it because it's too expensive," says Park. "If there is a Goliath, there will be a David. "I think one of David's candidates from South Korea is an insurgent."
And he adds: "We are rebels, it is in the name of our team."
MORE FROM FORBES
MORE FROM FORBESThis artificial intelligence startup wants to be the next Nvidia to build computers based on brain cells . Zinnia Lee .MORE FROM FORBESForbes Global CEO Conference. Technology expert Catherine Wangstated that the evolution of artificial intelligence increases the powers of the individual .MORE FROM FORBES AI Rise Makes Korean Semiconductor Company CEOJohn Kang a Billionaire
Is Nvidia's A100 chip compatible with Biren's BR100 processor? |: WSJ United States and China
