This article was displayed on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove (MM) site at 3:23 p.m. on Sept. 10, 2026.
HyperAccel, a fabless (design-focused) semiconductor startup, is on the verge of raising new funding of 200 billion won. In addition to Krafton, which declared an "AI first" strategy, stepping up as a strategic investor (SI), venture capital (VC) firms such as Korea Investment Partners and Company K Partners decided to make substantial follow-on investments.
According to the VC industry on the 10th, HyperAccel recently effectively wrapped up recruiting investors for its Series B round. About six months after it confirmed a plan in the first half to raise 200 billion won in new funding and began a book-building process targeting major domestic VCs, it scheduled the closing (transaction completion) for next month after payment and other procedures.
The company is understood to have been valued at about 800 billion won post-money (valuation after fundraising). Considering its valuation was about 200 billion won when it received a 55 billion won Series A investment at the end of 2024 from Korea Development Bank (KDB), KDB Capital, BonAngels Partners, and Korea Investment Partners, it has quadrupled.
HyperAccel is a startup developing AI accelerators, semiconductors that speed up AI computation, and was launched in Jan. 2023. Joo-Young Kim, a KAIST professor formerly at Microsoft (MS), founded it. From its early days, the company drew attention as the "next leader" following AI Semiconductor startups FuriosaAI and Rebellions.
HyperAccel is putting forward as its flagship the language processing unit (LPU), specialized for large language model (LLM) inference compute. By using low-power DRAM (LPDDR) instead of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), it delivers GPU-class performance for LLM workloads while consuming only one-third the power, a key competitive edge.
In particular, as HyperAccel launched its next-generation LPU "Bertha" and secured revenue visibility, Korea Investment Partners and Company K Partners(307930) led the fundraising as lead investors. Director Hee-Jin Kim of Korea Investment Partners and Vice President Jun-Young Byun of Company K Partners led due diligence and other execution.
In addition to Korea Investment Partners and Company K Partners, most existing financial investors (FI), including KB Investment and Mirae Asset Venture Investment(100790), moved to make follow-on investments. In addition, LB Investment(309960), AJU IB INVESTMENT(027360), HB Investment(440290), and We Ventures joined as new investors.
Krafton stepped in as an SI and invested 50 billion won. Krafton alone filled one-quarter of HyperAccel's total targeted raise of 200 billion won. As technology that lowers inference costs emerges as a game company's competitive edge, assessments say Krafton chose HyperAccel, specialized in LLMs, as its partner to secure semiconductors.
HyperAccel plans to use the 200 billion won in new investment funds to begin mass production of the Bertha AI accelerator for data centers. It also plans to proceed through development and initial contract manufacturing of the on-device AI accelerator "Bertha-Edge," aiming to release an engineering sample as a validation prototype within the year.
It is also accelerating its push into global markets. In Aug., HyperAccel unveiled a Bertha inference demo at "HOT CHIPS 2026" and discussed product application possibilities with global big tech and semiconductor corporations. It was later selected for Forbes Asia's "100 To Watch 2026," the first among domestic AI Semiconductor startups.
An investment manager at a domestic VC said, "Designing compute chips that use LPDDR is one of the areas Nvidia has set as a development direction because it can reduce power consumption and lower prices," adding, "Investor interest was high, especially as Krafton could become a demand source for semiconductors."