Table of Contents
- The promising candidate in the AI semiconductor market, watch out for Korea's Nvidia Furiosa AI
- Company Overview and Founding Background
- Main Products: Warboy and Renegade
- Current Investment Status and Rejection of Meta Acquisition
- Related Stocks, IPO Possibilities, Stock Trends
- Can it become Korea's Nvidia?
The promising candidate in the AI semiconductor market, watch out for Korea's Nvidia Furiosa AI
Recently, with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductor technologies dedicated to AI computation have gained attention. In this regard, 'Furiosa AI' is playing a significant role.
This company is a fabless startup specializing in AI chips, aiming at the global market based on domestic technology. It has garnered considerable attention by receiving investments from large tech firms like Naver and Meta.
This article will explore the company overview of Furiosa AI, its core technologies, and recent investment acquisition status, and discuss the potential for going public in-depth.
Company Overview and Founding Background
Furiosa AI is a Korean AI semiconductor design specialized startup founded in 2017. It is located in Gangnam, Seoul, and is growing as a global-oriented company that also operates a research lab in Silicon Valley, USA. The co-founders, CEO Baek Joon-ho and CTO Kim Han-jun, are challenging the development of next-generation AI chips based on their extensive experience accumulated at Intel and Samsung Electronics.
The company's name 'Furiosa' is derived from the female protagonist of the movie 'Mad Max: Fury Road', symbolizing a challenging and innovative spirit. Furiosa AI is determined to assert a strong presence in the global AI market. This vision is expected to enhance its competitiveness in the AI semiconductor industry and further expand its development potential.
Main Products: Warboy and Renegade
The main business of Furiosa AI is developing AI inference accelerator chips used in data centers. In particular, the two products have become notable examples showcasing their technological capabilities.
Warboy is the first-generation AI semiconductor introduced in 2021, optimized for AI services related to image classification and computer vision. Its actual performance has been highly rated, comparable to Google's TPU or Nvidia's products.
Renegade is the second-generation chip expected to be released in 2024, developed for ultra-large AI models (LLM) and multimodal AI processing. The most significant feature of this chip is its ability to provide high performance with low power consumption. Additionally, it aims to be part of the next-generation data center AI infrastructure, with commercialization preparations underway.
One of Furiosa AI's strengths is its full-stack development capabilities, having built its own software stack, compilers, and optimization frameworks. This aspect significantly enhances the potential for commercialization through collaboration with global partners, far beyond simple chip design. Consequently, Renegade is expected to play a crucial role in the future development of AI technology.
Current Investment Status and Rejection of Meta Acquisition
Furiosa AI has received considerable support from Naver since its early days, growing significantly through successful fundraising from Series A to D. In 2017, it raised 500 million won from Naver and DSC through pre-A investment, and in 2019, it secured 8 billion won from Series A, laying the foundation for growth. In 2021, it raised 80 billion won in Series B, solidifying its financial base.
Especially during the Series D round, Meta (formerly Facebook) and numerous U.S.-based funds and domestic conglomerates participated, drawing significant attention. In this process, Furiosa AI confirmed a total investment of approximately 40 billion won, including 30 billion won from the Korea Development Bank, estimating its total cumulative investment to exceed 120 billion won. This positions it at a high level among domestic AI semiconductor startups.
Furiosa AI officially rejected Meta's acquisition proposal of 1.2 trillion won at the end of March 2025. The company seems to believe that its independently developed AI chip 'Renegade' approaches the performance of Nvidia L40S while boasting excellent energy efficiency, making independent growth more advantageous than selling overseas. This decision could be a pivotal moment for Furiosa AI's future growth strategy.
Related Stocks, IPO Possibilities, Stock Trends
Furiosa AI is currently unlisted, but the industry predicts a strong possibility of going public on the KOSDAQ between 2025 and 2026. If listed, it is expected to attract significant interest from many investors as an AI semiconductor-related stock. Particularly, with major investors like Naver, DSC Investment, and Kakao Ventures involved, these companies are also indirectly attracting attention, and the overall anticipation for the AI semiconductor field is rising.
The AI semiconductor market is led by global giants like Nvidia, but Furiosa AI is actively conducting performance tests in collaboration with various global companies. In this process, how well they can secure differentiated competitiveness with domestic technology is expected to be a significant observation point for investors. Interest in Furiosa AI's future activities is expected to increase.
Can it become Korea's Nvidia?
Furiosa AI is establishing itself as a technological company aiming to innovate the future of AI computing infrastructure, going beyond a simple startup. With outstanding technology, proven products, investments from Naver and global enterprises, and expectations for going public, it is gaining attention as the 'next big thing' in the AI semiconductor market.
The key challenges ahead include securing mass production capabilities, stable foundry partnerships, and expanding market share. If all these elements are well combined, Furiosa AI has a solid chance of becoming the Nvidia made in Korea.
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