[Edaily Marketin, Reporter Soyoung Park ] This week (August 17–21), startups in various sectors—including materials, solar energy, and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions—secured investments from venture capital (VC) firms and accelerators (ACs).

In particular, “iHW,” a fabless company specializing in ultra-low-power AI semiconductors, drew attention by securing 52 billion won in a Series A funding round. iHW was founded in 2024 and is led by veteran executives and engineers from global semiconductor companies such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Intel. The company plans to use the funds from this investment for △mass production of edge AI chips △prototype production and marketing of large language model (LLM) chips △and hiring additional staff.

Ultra-Low-Power AI Semiconductor Fabless

Company

'iHW'

iHW, an ultra-low-power AI

semiconductor

fabless company, has successfully secured 52 billion won in funding during its Series A round. Kolon Investment served as the lead investor in this round. Existing investors, including Woori Venture Partners, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, DSC Investment, and HB Investment, all decided to participate in this follow-on investment. In addition, the Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) joined as a new investor. LIG Defense & Aerospace participated as part of a consortium formed with IBK Capital. With this, the company’s cumulative investment raised has reached a total of 64 billion won.

Kolon Investment stated that it recognized the market’s need for Analog Compute-in-Memory (ACiM) NPUs, which solve the “memory wall” problem. It also highlighted that the company successfully verified the silicon operation of its core block—which had been the biggest source of uncertainty—and demonstrated a high-dimensional vision AI model. It is assessed that the company has demonstrated the potential to capture the edge market—including smart cities, industrial vision, and robot joints—which digital NPUs have been unable to address due to heat generation and battery limitations.

INFERTRON, the ultra-low-power AI semiconductor developed by iHW, adopts the Analog Compute-in-Memory (ACiM) approach, which directly applies neuromorphic computing technology to its computational architecture. This differs from conventional digital NPUs, which retrieve weights stored in memory and process them in a separate computational circuit. The company’s semiconductor features an in-memory computing architecture that performs computations directly at the location where the weights are stored. This eliminates the need to transfer data to a separate computational circuit. Through large-scale parallel computation, it can simultaneously reduce power consumption and latency.

In addition, Infertron is designed to operate on a single chip without the need for external dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) or separate flash memory. It features an architecture that can be implemented even on mature (legacy) process nodes, rather than the latest cutting-edge processes. Another notable feature is its low heat generation, which allows systems to be configured without the need for separate heat sinks or cooling devices.

Graphene Specialist 'KB-ELEMENT'

KB-ELEMENT, a company specializing in non-oxidized graphene, has completed a Series B funding round worth 14 billion won. This brings the company’s cumulative investment to 30.7 billion won. A total of nine institutions participated in this round. The investors highly evaluated the company’s mass production technology for non-oxidized graphene, its commercialization track record across various industries, and the growth potential of its graphene dispersion and composite materials business.

KB-ELEMENT was founded in 2016. It mass-produces non-oxidized graphene using its proprietary atmospheric-pressure plasma process. By streamlining the complex manufacturing process of conventional oxidized and reduced graphene into just five steps, the company has enhanced its price competitiveness. The company has established an eco-friendly production system that generates no wastewater. Building on its mass production capacity of up to 21 metric tons of graphene powder and up to 2,100 metric tons of graphene dispersions annually, it is expanding its business scope into high-value-added materials such as graphene dispersions and composites.

KB Element will use the funds from this investment to expand its team of R&D specialists and sales personnel. It also plans to utilize the funds to establish a core foundation for growth. Through these efforts, the company aims to advance its R&D capabilities for graphene materials and application products. It also plans to accelerate the identification of graphene applications and commercialization both domestically and internationally.

KB Element will fully launch its graphene masterbatch business in the second half of this year, featuring significantly improved dispersibility and ease of use. The company aims to secure a leading position in the domestic graphene composite market. By offering masterbatches that can be integrated into existing polymer processing workflows without requiring additional equipment, the company plans to lower the barriers to adopting graphene and expand its customer base across various sectors, including electric vehicles, outdoor gear, and the marine industry.

Lightweight Solar Company ‘Solastic’

Solastic, a lightweight solar company, has secured pre-Series A investment from StoneBridge Ventures and IBK Enterprise Bank. StoneBridge Ventures highlighted Solastic’s differentiated technology, which allows solar cells to be integrated into exterior components while maintaining a vehicle’s curved surfaces and design. They also highly valued the technology platform’s scalability beyond passenger and commercial vehicles to purpose-built vehicles (PBVs), robots, and autonomous vehicles.

Solastic originated as an in-house venture of the Hyundai Motor Group. The company is expanding the lightweight packaging and molding technologies it has accumulated through research on vehicle-integrated photovoltaics (VIPV) into the building-attached photovoltaics (BAPV) sector. Based on this, it is developing lightweight building-mounted solar products that can be applied to aging factories and lightweight roofs, as well as automotive solar components that can be integrated into curved exterior parts of vehicles. The company is currently conducting a total of four pre-development projects with domestic automakers and automotive-related companies. It has also been selected for a government R&D project aimed at developing lightweight solar modules for vehicles.

Building on this investment, Solastic will begin the full-scale certification and launch of its lightweight building-integrated photovoltaic products. The company also plans to establish a mass production infrastructure for automotive solar components. Building-integrated products will be supplied to the market in collaboration with specialized manufacturing partners. Furthermore, for automotive products, the company will establish a factory to internalize core processes, thereby securing production and quality control capabilities.

Hardware Design AI 'SECA'

SECA, a startup specializing in automated hardware design, has secured seed funding from LG Electronics and Bluepoint Partners. This investment was made after the company launched as an independent entity through “Studio 341,” an in-house venture program jointly operated by LG Electronics and Bluepoint Partners. The investment amount and the company’s valuation remain undisclosed. Bluepoint noted that the company is receiving a strong positive response from the corporate sector and highly rated its potential to grow into a leader in the next-generation engineering software market.

SECA integrates fragmented design data from manufacturing environments—including △requirements △datasheets △circuit diagrams △bill of materials (BOM) △drawings △register-transfer level (RTL) and netlists—into a single system. The company is developing an AI-based Electronic Design Automation (AI for EDA) platform that automates the entire process—from verifying the consistency of design changes to component recommendations, circuit design, and verification.

Additionally, Seka organizes the relationships between design elements into an ontology structure to automatically track the scope of impact for design changes. It ensures consistency by using a rule engine for rigorous determinations—such as voltage, temperature, and interfaces—and by combining its proprietary large language model (LLM) with a visual language model (VLM) for interpreting technical documents and drawings.

Seka is currently conducting pilot projects with domestic and international manufacturers, including LG Electronics’ Home Appliances and Vehicle Systems (VS) Division, DB Global Chip, and Airbus. The company is expanding its customer base based on demand for subsequent implementations. Going forward, Seka plans to build a hardware-specialized foundation model that learns circuit interconnections, physical constraints, and design history, with the goal of expanding into a next-generation AI for EDA platform.

'INT' Develops AI Evaluation and Operations Solutions

INT, a developer of

AI evaluation and operations solutions

, has secured new investment from CNT Tech. This investment was made through CNT Tech’s 22nd Investment Fund. The specific investment amount has not been disclosed. CNT Tech highly praised INT for its approach to solving enterprise AI operations challenges from the perspectives of evaluation, diagnosis, and recovery. The firm sees significant growth potential for INT in the AI operations management market.

Int is a startup founded by professors from Sogang University. Over the past four years, it has planned, developed, and delivered more than 20 enterprise AI solutions. It has accumulated field-centric AI implementation experience—a rarity in academia. To solve the real-world problems identified during this process, the company is developing “Turing,” an AI evaluation automation solution.

Turing, developed by Int, automatically configures task-specific evaluation criteria and metrics during the development phase. It ensures that AI is developed to a level where it can solve real-world problems. Furthermore, during the operational phase, it monitors the AI’s status in place of humans through an operational management structure that integrates evaluation, detection, diagnosis, and recovery. If performance degradation occurs, it identifies the cause, devises a response strategy, and implements it.

Based on its experience in building enterprise AI systems, Intra is advancing the technological sophistication of Turing. The company’s strategy is to expand it into an enterprise AI operations management platform. It incorporates task-specific evaluation criteria, error types, degradation patterns, and recovery scenarios identified during the AI implementation process for each client into the product.

Webtoon Production and Distribution Company ‘Xten Studio’

Webtoon production and distribution company Xten Studio has secured new investment from Krit Ventures. Krit Ventures determined that, as the global webtoon market is still in its early stages of growth, there are ample growth opportunities for Korean companies capable of targeting overseas markets with high-quality content. Based on this assessment, the firm decided to invest, believing that Xten Studio will emerge as an intellectual property (IP) studio with global competitiveness.

Xten Studio was founded in 2024 by CEO Shin Sang-won, the creator of the webtoon “The Law of Pet Dogs”—which has recorded 120 million cumulative views on KakaoPage—and former CEO of the webtoon production company The N. The company focuses on “Noble Comics,” which adapts proven web novel IP into webtoons, and has released a total of 16 titles to date. The company maintains an in-house team covering all aspects of webtoon production, from planning and direction to visual implementation. It has also established a distribution structure that involves direct contracts with major webtoon platforms.

Based on this investment, Xten Studio plans to release 4 to 7 new titles annually through 2030 to continuously expand its portfolio of self-distributed titles. The company identifies global-oriented IPs tailored to local readers from the planning stage. Furthermore, it intends to accelerate the growth of overseas revenue by expanding its distribution channels to major webtoon markets—starting with Japan and expanding to North America and Southeast Asia.

Furthermore, the company is launching a full-scale media mix business to adapt successful webtoon IPs into visual content such as TV dramas and films. Through these adaptations, it aims to attract new audiences. It also plans to increase traffic to the original webtoons, thereby expanding revenue from both derivative works and the serialization of the original content. The goal is to maximize the added value of its IP.