France-based microprocessor producer Kalray closed a $26m round yesterday featuring Safran Corporate Ventures, the early-stage investment vehicle for aerospace and defence equipment provider Safran.
The round included CEA Investissement, the venture capital arm of state-funded research agency Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA), as well as investment fund Pengpai, private equity firm Ace Management, VC firm Eurekap, Héléa Financière and Inocap Gestion.
Kalray was spun out of CEA in 2008 and develops manycore microprocessors that can deliver higher performance while consuming less power.
The $15m first tranche of the round will be supplied to Kalray immediately, with the remaining $11m to come before the end of this year.
The funding will be used to begin development of MPPA Coolidge, which will be Kalray’s third generation of microprocessors, which the company plans to release in 2018.
Eric Baissus, chief executive of Kalray, said: “This funding round will give us the means to accelerate our international development and it confirms that renowned companies in the domain consider our technology strategically important for the future of the industry.”
The round boosted Kalray’s overall funding to $65m since it was founded, the company said, $8m of which came in a 2014 round featuring Ace Management, CEA Investissement and Eurekap. It also named French state-owned investment bank BPIfrance as a past investor.