Floadia Completes Fundraising of 1.6 Bil. JPY from 9 VCs in Japan and Taiwan for Investment in Embedded Flash Memory IP Business

TOKYO, July 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Floadia Corporation (hereinafter "Floadia") headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, announced on July 5 that it successfully closed "Series B" fundraising of 1.6 billion Japanese yen (US$14.5 million) to use the funds to continue the commercial supply of its embedded flash memory IP to major foundries. Floadia's Series B is mainly funded by Taiwanese VCs under a leading semiconductor foundry group and ITRI, along with leading Japanese VCs.

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The investment has been funded by:

• Fortune Venture Capital Corporation (one of the funds collectively known as UMC Capital),
• Chih-Hung Investment Corporation (Taiwan Faraday group),
• Innovation Network Corporation of Japan ("INCJ"),
• Golden Asia Fund Ventures Ltd. (Joint Fund of Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd., and Taiwan ITIC, an investment institution owned by ITRI),
• Daiwa Corporate Investment Co., Ltd. ("Daiwa" in Japan),
• SBI Investment Co. Ltd. in Japan,
• Real Tech Fund (euglena SMBC Nikko Leave-a-Nest Capital L.L.C. in Japan),
• Innovations and Future Creation Inc. in Japan,
• TEL Venture Capital, Inc. in U.S.

Established in 2011, Floadia is a spin-out made up of experienced engineers who were developing embedded non-volatile memory at Renesas Electronics Corporation. The company licenses its intellectual property (IP), including manufacturing process and circuit designs, enabling embedded non-volatile memory production. Floadia's engineering team is comprised of experienced memory circuit designers and industry veterans with broad experience in fabrication processes, manufacturing, and reliability. One of the company's strengths is its ability to develop optimal memory IP according to customer specifications and preferred manufacturing process technology.

Two years ago, in 2015, Floadia raised 800 million JPY (US$7.3 million) of Series A funds from INCJ, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd. and Daiwa. The main purpose of Series B fundraising is to expand its embedded flash IP business into high reliability, and high-performance applications such as automotive, low-cost IoT device and mobile device markets.

Mr. Mikihide Katsumata, President and COO of INCJ, said: "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. 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. I hope Floadia will expand these marvelous technologies and products born in Japan to the worldwide market and contribute to the growth of the IoT world."

"Embedded flash plays an essential role in SoC designs, but with the need for continuous process migration, it becomes more and more difficult to enable a cost-effective and robust embedded flash IP in pure-play foundries. Floadia's SONOS based embedded flash is a proven technology with a long history within IDM suppliers of automotive MCUs," said Mr. DC Cheng, Board Director of UMC Capital. "Beyond the traditional embedded non-volatile memory usage in SoC, we see more potential for Floadia's embedded flash technology in NVSRAM and the possibility to enable future AI electronics devices," he added.

"The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to become more pervasive and, as a key component of IoT products, memory is indispensable. Customers who are aggressively going after the IoT market demand low cost, low power, and ease of use. Floadia's introduction of a game-changing embedded flash technology addressing these requirements is highly anticipated," said Mr. CJ Chang, Executive Vice President of ITIC. "Floadia will move forward, combining the strength of our bit cell development in Japan, and macro design in Taiwan. We are happy to see such a successful Japan-Taiwan collaboration model."

*Non-volatile memory is the general term for semiconductor memory which can hold saved data even in the absence of a power supply. Floadia licenses non-volatile memory as an IP block.

About Floadia Corporation
Established: April 2011
Business outline: Design and development of embedded non-volatile memory
Representative Director, President: Kosuke Okuyama
Website: http://floadia.com

SOURCE Floadia Corporation

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