Japan's Floadia closes $14m Series B
Floadia, a Japan-based company specializing in microchip memory technology, has closed a JPY1.6 billion ($14.1 million) Series B fund round from a number of Taiwanese, Japanese and US venture capital firms.
Contributing investors include SBI Investment, Chih-Hung Investment, Real Tech Fund, Daiwa Corporate Investment, Innovations & Future Creation, and US-based TEL Venture Capital. Fortune Venture Capital, a division of Taiwan’s UMC Capital, and Golden Asia Fund Ventures, a joint venture between Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and Taiwan ITIC, also participated. Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) agreed to commit up to JPY200 million.
The company will use the capital to expand its flash memory business into internet-of-things (IoT) applications. The effort will leverage connections with UMC to advance operations in Japan, Taiwan, and overseas markets.
“Embedded flash memories are expected to expand their demand for more diverse applications through the fourth industrial revolution in which IoT devices will be implemented,” Mikihide Katsumata, president and COO at INCJ, said in a statement. “Floadia provides the ultimate solution for these market requirements offering high reliability and secures automobile applicable applications with low-power, small-area and low-cost features.”
Founded in 2011 by engineers from Japanese semiconductor manufacturer Renesas Electronics, Floadia focuses on licensing intellectual property related to the manufacturing and circuit design of microchip data memory systems. The company received a JPY800 million Series A round in 2015 from INCJ, Mitsubishi UFJ and Daiwa.
Chip memory has proven an attractive investment area for the private sector. Last month, Bain and INCJ were named the preferred bidders for Toshiba's flash memory business, overcoming competition from Western Digital and KKR. However, the latter consortium subsequently resubmitted its offer, with Western Digital claiming it had veto power in the sales process due to an existing partnership with Toshiba.
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