JUNE PAIK, chief executive officer of FuriosaAI, Inc., during the Super AI Conference in Singapore in June 2025. — ORE HUIYING/BLOOMBERG

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) chip designer FuriosaAI is seeking to raise as much as $500 million in a funding round before an initial public offering (IPO) as it gears up to challenge industry titan Nvidia Corp., according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The Seoul-based startup has appointed Morgan Stanley and Mirae Asset Securities Co. as co-advisers for the Series D round, and is targeting $300 million to $500 million in the round, the people said, asking not to be identified because the details aren’t public.

Proceeds will fund FuriosaAI’s mass production of its second-generation RNGD chip, global business expansion and the development of a third-generation chip, the people said. The startup is eyeing a potential public listing as early as 2027, they said. FuriosaAI is set to receive its first mass-produced shipment of RNGD AI chips from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. later this month, one of the people said.

Representatives for FuriosaAI and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. Mirae Asset officials weren’t immediately reachable for comment.

Founded in 2017 by June Paik — a veteran of Samsung Electronics Co. and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. — FuriosaAI specializes in high-efficiency AI inference chips. The RNGD, pronounced “renegade,” delivers 2.25 times the inference performance-per-watt of traditional graphics processing units, according to the company.

The milestone comes amid a boom in AI hardware investment. Groq, Inc., raised $750 million in a round last year ahead of a strategic partnership with Nvidia. Other recent deals include Cerebras Systems, Inc.’s pursuit of $1 billion in new capital at a $22-billion valuation and Etched’s $500-million funding round. — Bloomberg

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