Preferred Networks, AI Development Unicorn, Raises 19B Yen Including Debt Financing—SBI and Mitsubishi Corporation Among Investors
Summary
Preferred Networks (PFN), a developer of AI solutions and semiconductors, announced on December 23 that it has raised 19 billion yen in its latest funding round.The round was led by SBI Group, with participation from SEKISUI HOUSE Innovation & Communication, Development Bank of Japan, Mitsubishi Corporation (TSE: 8058), and Wacom (TSE: 6727). The total includes debt financing from Shoko Chukin Bank, SMBC, MUFG Bank, and Resona Bank.Prior to this funding, PFN signed a basic agreement with SBI Holdings in August for capital and business alliance focused on next-generation AI semiconductor development and commercialization.PFN plans to continue raising funds through spring 2025. With this latest round, the companys total known funding has reached approximately 36 billion yen. PFNs valuation exceeds 300 billion yen, making it Japans highest-valued unicorn.The new funding will be invested in strengthening recruitment of top talent and accelerating the development, manufacturing, and sales of their low-power AI processor MN-Core Series, particularly the MN-Core L1000 inference processor for generative AI.The funds will also support enhancement of their domestic generative AI foundation model PLaMo, development of solutions and products across various domains using these technologies, and expansion of their large-scale computing infrastructure.Since its founding in 2014, PFN has pursued a vertically integrated approach to developing and providing both hardware and software necessary for practical AI applications. The MN-Core 2 achieves 393 teraFLOPS performance in 16-bit AI computations with power efficiency of 1,192 gigaFLOPS per watt.PFNs technological prowess was demonstrated when their supercomputer equipped with the first-generation MN-Core ranked first in the Green500 list three times in 2020 and 2021.As of November 2021, this supercomputer achieved power efficiency of 39.38 gigaFLOPS per watt with 64% execution efficiency.
Funding
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