South Korean fabless AI semiconductor startup HyperExcel has effectively completed investor recruitment for a 200 billion won ($148.2 million) Series B round, with closing planned for next month. The financing values the company at approximately 800 billion won ($593.0 million), four times its roughly 200 billion won valuation in a 55 billion won Series A completed in late 2024. Game company Krafton is making a sole strategic investment of 50 billion won ($37.1 million), or one-quarter of the round, while Korea Investment Partners and Company K Partners are serving as lead investors. Existing backers including KB Investment and Mirae Asset Venture Investment are participating alongside new investors LB Investment, AJU IB Investment, HB Investment and WeVentures. Founded in January 2023 by KAIST Professor Kim Joo-young, a former Microsoft employee, HyperExcel develops LPUs for large language model inference. Its LPDDR-based architecture is designed to deliver GPU-class performance while consuming one-third the power of systems using HBM. The company plans to deploy the funds toward mass production of its data-center accelerator Bertha and development and initial contract manufacturing of the on-device Bertha-Edge accelerator, with engineering samples targeted within the year. HyperExcel demonstrated Bertha at HOT CHIPS 2026, held application discussions with global technology and semiconductor companies, and became the first South Korean AI semiconductor startup named to Forbes Asia’s 100 To Watch 2026 list.