FuriosaAI turns down US$800m bid from Meta
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The news: Korean chip startup FuriosaAI has turned down an USD800 million ($1.27 billion) takeover offer from Meta, choosing instead to grow the business as an independent company, according to media reports.
The numbers: Local Korean media outlet MK said that the acquisition price proposed by Meta at approximately 1.2 trillion South Korean won, is around 400 billion South Korean won higher than FuriosaAI’s current market valuation. The MK source said that while there was some internal debate over the proposed price within FuriosaAI, founder and CEO Baek Jun-ho, was unhappy with other business terms of the transaction.
The context: MK said that Meta has been eyeing several AI semiconductor companies across the US and Israel, and commenced negotiations with FuriosaAI at the beginning of the year. According to MK, the acquisition negotiations broke down because the two sides could not narrow their differences over the direction of the business and organisational structure after the acquisition rather, than disagreeing on the price.
FuriosaAI builds semiconductors for AI inferencing, and its second-generation processor RNGD (Renegade) was designed to challenge products from the likes of Nvidia and Groq.
Meta is trying to reduce its reliance on Nvidia for its chips specialised in training and building large language models, announcing plans to spend up to USD65 billion to expand its AI infrastructure this year, including on its first in-house chip for training AI systems.
FuriosaAI is reportedly in talks with investors to raise 70 billion South Korean won which it hopes to complete this month, and plans to invest the funding into RNGD’s mass production and operating expenses.
The sources: MK local media report, Bloomberg
