AI chip startup Rebellions attracts $124 mn in in series B funding

Shin Sung-kyue, Rebellions’ chief financial officer

Rebellions Inc., an artificial intelligence (AI) chip startup in South Korea, has raised 165 billion won ($124 million) in funding from multiple investors, including KT Corp. and KT Cloud Corp.

The latest financing has resulted in the valuation of Rebellions to reach 880 billion won, nearing a unicorn, or a startup valued at over $1 billion.

Rebellions announced Tuesday that it raised 165 billion won in series B round of funding.

Shin Sung-kyue, Rebellions’ chief financial officer, said in a release that KT, the country’s major telecommunications company, led the investment round as a strategic investor, with participation from Temasek Holdings Ltd.’s Pavilion Capital, Korea Development Bank, and France’s Korelya Capital.

In particular, KT (20 billion won), KT Cloud (10 billion won), and KT Investment (3 billion won) participated in the investment. KT aims to solidify its alliance in the AI ecosystem through this investment.

Previously, Rebellions had developed Atom, a neural processing unit (NPU) with fast computation speed and high power efficiency, in collaboration with KT. The development contributed to the lightweighing of KT’s large language model (LLM), Mi:dm.

KT noted that it plans to actively utilize various AI semiconductor lineups that Rebellions will release in the future to strengthen its AI infrastructure and service competitiveness. Rebellions intends to use the investment funds to expand the production of Atom and attract talents.

Rebellions also plans to develop a new AI chip, Rebel, in collaboration with Samsung Electronics Co.

“We aim to complete the development of Rebel by the end of this year and start mass production in 2025,” Shin said.

Rebel is a system-on-chip (SoC) equipped with Samsung Electronics’ next-generation DRAM, High-Bandwidth Memory 3E (HBM3E).