Latest news with #SiPearl
Forbes
09-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Taiwan Billionaire Tsai's Cathay Venture Joins $152 Million Round In French AI Chip Startup SiPearl
getty Cathay Venture, the venture capital arm of Taiwan billionaire Tsai Hong-tu's banking giant Cathay Financial Holdings, has participated in French AI chip startup SiPearl's €130 million ($152 million) funding round. SiPearl's Series A round marks Cathay Venture's first investment in the European AI hub of France, the startup said in a statement on Tuesday. It's also the largest Series A round in Europe's fabless semiconductor industry, according to SiPearl. Other investors who joined the round include SoftBank-owned chip designer Arm, the European Union's European Innovation Council Fund, state-owned fund French Tech Souveraineté and French IT company Atos. Founded in 2019, SiPearl said it will use the funds to produce its AI chip, called Rhea1. The Rhea1 chip, which SiPearl claims is 'the most complex processor ever designed in Europe,' is an Arm-based central processing unit (CPU) designed for supercomputers and inference. SiPearl said its Rhea1 chip has been handed off to TSMC for manufacturing and will be available for sampling early next year. The chip will be deployed at the government-funded Jupiter supercomputer in Germany for applications such as engineering, materials science and dark matter research. 'With the tape-out of the most complex processor ever designed in Europe, we are showing that Europe now has a competitor capable of challenging non-European leaders,' said SiPearl founder and CEO Philippe Notton, an engineer with stints at French-Italian chip maker STMicroelectronics and Taiwan's MStar Semiconductor (which was acquired by MediaTek in 2013). Notton added in the statement that his startup chose to forge ties with Taiwan because 'Europe needs strong and independent partners in the global semiconductor ecosystem' and Taiwan is 'at the forefront of this industry worldwide.' In the statement, Stanley Yu, assistant vice president at Cathay Venture, said the firm invested in SiPearl because it's 'one of the few semiconductor design companies in the world that, from its inception, set out to address the computing power and energy efficiency challenges faced by modern datacenters' needs.' Cathay Venture was established in 2003 as the investment arm of Cathay Financial, Taiwan's largest financial group with more than $400 billion in total assets. The venture capital firm has more than one-fourth of its portfolio in semiconductor and electronics companies, according to the statement. Among them is U.S.-based Rivos, cofounded by Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, which develops chips based on the RISC-V architecture, an open-source alternative to the architecture made by Arm. Cathay Venture's other portfolio companies include Taipei-based travel superapp KKDay, as well as Hong Kong-based virtual insurance startup OneDegree, which was featured on the Forbes Asia 100 to Watch list in 2022. MORE FROM FORBES Forbes Meet The Hong Kong Billionaire-Backed Chinese Startup That's Making Chips Without U.S. Technology By Zinnia Lee Forbes Nvidia Joins $4 Million Seed Round In Taiwan's AI-Powered Simulation Startup MetAI By Zinnia Lee Forbes Taiwan's Travel Superapp KKday Receives $70 Million Investment To Fund Asia Expansion By Zinnia Lee
Business Upturn
09-07-2025
- Business
- Business Upturn
SiPearl: Final closing of €130m Series A with Cathay Venture (Taiwan), EIC Fund and France 2030
By Business Wire India Published on July 9, 2025, 10:54 IST Business Wire India Tape-out of Rhea1, the most complex processor ever designed in Europe which will equip JUPITER, the 1st European exascale supercomputer Largest Series A in the European fabless semiconductor industry including €32m in new funding to close Series A and prepare the launch of Series B Strengthening ties with Taiwan's semiconductor ecosystem to complement Europe's sovereignty in supercomputing and AI SiPearl, the company building European high-performance energy-efficient processors for supercomputing and AI has achieved the definitive closing of its €130m Series A with a third tranche of €32m. Seed funded by the European Union, SiPearl was launched in January 2020 under the auspices of the European Processor Initiative consortium which aims to foster the return of high-performance energy-efficient processor technologies in Europe. Since then, the company has fulfilled its mission by building a world-class processor team of 200 employees in France, Spain, and Italy, set up its own sovereign infrastructure with data centres in France equipped with servers and emulators dedicated to semiconductor design. SiPearl has completed the conception of the most complex processor ever designed in Europe, Rhea1. With 80 Arm Neoverse V1 cores, Rhea1 is composed of more than 61bn transistors. Several weeks ago, Rhea1 taped-out and was handed off to the world's leading foundry, TSMC in Taïwan, for start of manufacturing. Rhea1 will equip the CPU cluster of JUPITER, the first European exascale supercomputer which is owned by EuroHPC JU and operated by Jülich Supercomputing Centre (Germany). Key component of iconic European collaborative projects, Rhea1 will help ensure Europe's technological sovereignty, independence, and competitiveness. SiPearl's total Series A rounds is the largest Series A in the European fabless semiconductor industry. Its third tranche of funding is backed by 2 existing investors, EIC Fund and The French State, via French Tech Souveraineté which is part of France 2030 led by the General Secretariat for Investment, and a new investor, a major private equity firm, the Taiwanese Cathay Venture for its first investment in France. This latest Series A funding round supports the industrialization phase of Rhea1. It also accelerates R&D activities for the launch of next-generation processors that will meet the needs of supercomputing and new market segments, such as data centres, AI, and enterprises, ahead of the launch of Series B in a few weeks. View source version on Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with Business Wire India. Business Upturn take no editorial responsibility for the same. Ahmedabad Plane Crash Business Wire India, established in 2002, India's premier media distribution company ensures guaranteed media coverage through its network of 30+ cities and top news agencies.
National Post
08-07-2025
- Business
- National Post
SiPearl: Final closing of €130m Series A with Cathay Venture (Taiwan), EIC Fund and France 2030
Article content Tape-out of Rhea1, the most complex processor ever designed in Europe which will equip JUPITER, the 1 st European exascale supercomputer Largest Series A in the European fabless semiconductor industry including €32m in new funding to close Series A and prepare the launch of Series B Strengthening ties with Taiwan's semiconductor ecosystem to complement Europe's sovereignty in supercomputing and AI Article content MAISONS-LAFFITTE, France — SiPearl, the company building European high-performance energy-efficient processors for supercomputing and AI has achieved the definitive closing of its €130m Series A with a third tranche of €32m. Article content Seed funded by the European Union, SiPearl was launched in January 2020 under the auspices of the European Processor Initiative consortium which aims to foster the return of high-performance energy-efficient processor technologies in Europe. Since then, the company has fulfilled its mission by building a world-class processor team of 200 employees in France, Spain, and Italy, set up its own sovereign infrastructure with data centres in France equipped with servers and emulators dedicated to semiconductor design. SiPearl has completed the conception of the most complex processor ever designed in Europe, Rhea1. With 80 Arm Neoverse V1 cores, Rhea1 is composed of more than 61bn transistors. Several weeks ago, Rhea1 taped-out and was handed off to the world's leading foundry, TSMC in Taïwan, for start of manufacturing. Article content Rhea1 will equip the CPU cluster of JUPITER, the first European exascale supercomputer which is owned by EuroHPC JU and operated by Jülich Supercomputing Centre (Germany). Key component of iconic European collaborative projects, Rhea1 will help ensure Europe's technological sovereignty, independence, and competitiveness. Article content SiPearl's total Series A rounds is the largest Series A in the European fabless semiconductor industry. Its third tranche of funding is backed by 2 existing investors, EIC Fund and The French State, via French Tech Souveraineté which is part of France 2030 led by the General Secretariat for Investment, and a new investor, a major private equity firm, the Taiwanese Cathay Venture for its first investment in France. Article content This latest Series A funding round supports the industrialization phase of Rhea1. It also accelerates R&D activities for the launch of next-generation processors that will meet the needs of supercomputing and new market segments, such as data centres, AI, and enterprises, ahead of the launch of Series B in a few weeks. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content
Business Wire
08-07-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
SiPearl: Final closing of €130m Series A with Cathay Venture (Taiwan), EIC Fund and France 2030
MAISONS-LAFFITTE, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SiPearl, the company building European high-performance energy-efficient processors for supercomputing and AI has achieved the definitive closing of its €130m Series A with a third tranche of €32m. Seed funded by the European Union, SiPearl was launched in January 2020 under the auspices of the European Processor Initiative consortium which aims to foster the return of high-performance energy-efficient processor technologies in Europe. Since then, the company has fulfilled its mission by building a world-class processor team of 200 employees in France, Spain, and Italy, set up its own sovereign infrastructure with data centres in France equipped with servers and emulators dedicated to semiconductor design. SiPearl has completed the conception of the most complex processor ever designed in Europe, Rhea1. With 80 Arm Neoverse V1 cores, Rhea1 is composed of more than 61bn transistors. Several weeks ago, Rhea1 taped-out and was handed off to the world's leading foundry, TSMC in Taïwan, for start of manufacturing. Rhea1 will equip the CPU cluster of JUPITER, the first European exascale supercomputer which is owned by EuroHPC JU and operated by Jülich Supercomputing Centre (Germany). Key component of iconic European collaborative projects, Rhea1 will help ensure Europe's technological sovereignty, independence, and competitiveness. SiPearl's total Series A rounds is the largest Series A in the European fabless semiconductor industry. Its third tranche of funding is backed by 2 existing investors, EIC Fund and The French State, via French Tech Souveraineté which is part of France 2030 led by the General Secretariat for Investment, and a new investor, a major private equity firm, the Taiwanese Cathay Venture for its first investment in France. This latest Series A funding round supports the industrialization phase of Rhea1. It also accelerates R&D activities for the launch of next-generation processors that will meet the needs of supercomputing and new market segments, such as data centres, AI, and enterprises, ahead of the launch of Series B in a few weeks.
Bloomberg
08-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Chipmaker SiPearl Raises €130 Million in EU Sovereign AI Push
European Union-backed chipmaker SiPearl has raised €130 million ($152 million) from investors including Taiwan's Cathay Venture, as Europe pushes for technological sovereignty. The French startup, which makes high-performance, energy-efficient processors for artificial intelligence and supercomputing, said it would use the Series A financing to invest in research and development and to industrialize its Rhea1 chip, which features 80 cores from chip designer Arm Holdings Plc and more than 61 billion transistors, according to a statement on Tuesday.
