Rebellions to join pre-unicorn list via Series A Funding

Rebellions Inc., a South Korean AI-powered fabless startup, is in the final stage of the Series A Funding Round with 70 billion won ($54.9 million) of capital. The fabless company’s corporate value post-funding is estimated at 260 billion won ($203.8 million), putting itself on the list of pre-unicorn startups only 20 months after its inception. In Korea, a unicorn is a privately held startup company valued at more than 1 trillion won. 

Some local venture capital firms such as IMM Investment Corp., SV Investment Co. and Mirae Asset Venture Investment Co. joined the Series A funding. The startup attracted pre-Series A Funding in July 2021, attracting 14.5 billion won from Korean VC firms including Kakao Ventures Corp., Shinhan Capital Co., GU Equity Partners LLC and Seoul Techno Holdings Inc. Including the Series A funding, Rebellions will have attracted an aggregate of 100 billion won.

Rebellions was founded in September 2020 by Park Sung-hyun, who formerly worked for Intel Labs, Samsung Mobile, Space X and Morgan Stanley. The startup has 47 engineers, including 19 PhDs and tech veterans from Samsung and SK Hynix.

The rapid growth of Rebellions reflects the competitive edge of its in-house AI chip Ion and the potential of the global non-memory chip market. Released in November, Ion is 30% faster than Intel’s Habana Goya when it comes to processing. Also, Ion’s electricity consumption rate is much lower than that of its Intel counterpart. Taiwan's TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor foundry, is manufacturing Ion chips.

Rebellions and Samsung Electronics’ foundry are jointly developing semiconductors by employing a 5-nanometer process. After closing the Series A funding, the startup will use the capital for its research and development activities. Its next AI chip products, Atom and Rebel, will be launched in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

Write to Chae-Yeon Kim at why29@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.