Neural NoiseiHW — $35M+ Series A for Neuromorphic ACiM AI Chip (INFERTRON)
- South Korean fabless startup iHW closed a Series A round of roughly 52 billion won (approximately $35–37 million), announced 19 August 2026, led by Kolon Investment12.
- Existing investors Woori Venture Partners, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, DSC Investment, and HB Investment all participated in follow-on investment; Korea Development Bank joined as a new investor, and LIG Defence & Aerospace participated via a consortium with IBK Capital, bringing the total to 13 participating institutions12.
- The round brings iHW’s cumulative funding to roughly 64 billion won (~$46M), following an 8.2 million-dollar (12 billion won) pre-Series A round closed in late 202413.
- iHW’s chip, INFERTRON, applies neuromorphic computing principles directly to its compute architecture using an analog compute-in-memory (ACiM) design, performing calculations at the location where weights are stored rather than shuttling data to separate digital compute circuits as conventional NPUs do — reducing both power consumption and latency14.
- The chip is designed to run as a single chip without external DRAM or flash memory, operates on mature (non-leading-edge) process nodes, and generates little heat, avoiding the need for separate cooling hardware — targeting edge AI use cases such as smart cities, industrial vision, and robotics joints where thermal and battery limits have blocked digital NPUs4.
- Funds will go toward mass production of edge AI chips, prototype production and marketing of large-language-model chips, and additional hiring; iHW was founded in 2024 by veteran engineers from Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Intel, and has also secured over $10 million in South Korean government AI-semiconductor grants45.