Korea-linked startup MangoBoost raises funds for DPUs

Business news | December 4, 2023

By Peter Clarke

Artificial Intelligence Analog

Data processing startup MangoBoost Inc. (Bellevue, Wash.) has raised US$55 million in a Series A round of financing led by IMM Investment and Shinhan Venture Investment.

The company, founded in 2022, is developing data processing units (DPUs) and AI server infrastructure based on ten years of university research. The company reckons its DPUs can help optimizing performance and energy and cost efficiency in data centers, which will be essential for the next generation of AI applications including large language models such as GPT, Bard, and LLAMA.

The company has a strong connection to Korea and other investors in the round included Korea Development Bank, KB Investment, IM Capital, and Premier Partners. All Seed round investors including DSC Investment, Stonebridge Ventures, and Must Ventures also participated in the round.

MangoBoost said it will use the funds to develop multiple products that utilize its patent-pending DPU accelerator hardware IPs, composition flows, and full-system expertise. This includes enhancing off-the-shelf Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based full-stack DPUs, expanding the scope of fully-customized DPUs and investing in DPU powered AI.

“With this support, we will grow our business by providing a series of market-defining flexible DPU solutions to meet the various needs of modern datacenters. I am fully confident that MangoBoost is the only driving force to truly realize the ambitious goal,” said Jangwoo Kim, founder and CEO of Mangoboost, in a statement. Kim is a Professor at Seoul National University.

MangoBoost’s team includes over 60 systems architects, software engineers, and FPGA/SoC engineers, many of whom have PhDs. MangoBoost has offices in Seattle and Seoul.