(Bloomberg) -- South Korean startup Rebellions Inc. is planning to go public as early as the end of 2025, seeking to capitalize on booming demand for the chips used to power generative AI.
It plans to select global banks for a domestic listing around March after completing a merger with SK Telecom Co.’s Sapeon Korea in November, Chief Executive Officer Park Sunghyun told Bloomberg Television. Depending on its ramp-up and market conditions, the company could debut by late 2025 or early 2026, he estimated. It’s selected domestic broker Samsung Securities Co. to lead its IPO.
Rebellions is one of several emergent players trying to break into the broader market for AI semiconductors, now led by Nvidia Corp. Global capital is flowing toward firms from the US to China that are spending billions of dollars building advanced AI, a wave of activity galvanized by the advent of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Rebellions, backed by Saudi Aramco’s venture arm, Temasek Holdings Pte’s Pavilion Capital and South Korea’s KT Corp., is working with Samsung Electronics Co. to produce a next-generation AI chip. It’s preparing to deliver the design of its new chip to Samsung next month. The chip, which will be manufactured using Samsung’s 4-nanometer process, is expected to be equipped with four of the Korean giant’s most advanced high-bandwidth memory chips, 12-layer HBM3E.
“We have enough cash at the moment so an IPO is more than securing the money,” said Park, a former Intel Corp. researcher who also worked as a quant developer at Morgan Stanley in New York.
Park is slated to lead the combined Rebellions-Sapeon entity, which is expected to have an enterprise value of more than 1 trillion won ($750 million).
The 40-year-old CEO expects to ship its newest chip to customers around June 2025. Rather than compete with Nvidia or Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in AI accelerators, Rebellions will for now focus on inference, or supporting predictions and conclusions for real-world use, rather than training.
Its customers include SK, KT and oil giant Saudi Aramco. In the future, the company plans to target the Chinese market while complying with necessary regulations, Park said.
“We first need to demonstrate our performance in Korean telcos and Aramco data centers,” he said.
--With assistance from Yvonne Man and David Ingles.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
