AIO获投后估值升至1.2万亿韩元并计划最早今年或明年冲刺KOSDAQ上市

AIO, a NAND flash controller fabless design company, has become a unicorn 15 years after its founding. The milestone came as the spread of artificial intelligence (AI) brought favorable conditions to the global semiconductor market, sharply improving the company's performance and earning bright assessments of its market growth prospects. Based on the funds secured, AIO plans to expand its supply of high-value-added products such as solid-state drives (SSDs) and to secure additional global customers.
According to the venture industry on the 22nd, a major domestic asset manager recently valued AIO at 1.2 trillion won and invested more than 50 billion won. Earlier this year, AIO had been valued at around 200 billion to 300 billion won. In just a few months, its valuation has quadrupled.
AIO is a NAND controller design company founded in 2011 by semiconductor experts who had long worked at Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK hynix (000660.KS). A NAND controller is a semiconductor that reads and writes data stored in NAND flash and corrects errors. Co-CEOs Kwon Jin-hyung and Baek Sang-yeol worked together in the product planning team of Samsung Electronics' memory business division, while Vice President Na Han-joo and Executive Director Ko Young-sik served as development and manufacturing executives at SK hynix. Under the fabless structure, in which the company handles only design and outsources production to foundries, there is no burden of large-scale facility investment, and design capability directly translates into competitiveness.
In Korea, FADU (440110.KQ) is considered the closest competitor. In the global market, established players such as Taiwan's Silicon Motion and Phison stand firm. AIO's major investors include LG Electronics, Korea Investment Partners, LB Investment, BNW Investment, and KDB Capital.
Behind the rapid rise in valuation are the increase in NAND flash demand driven by the spread of AI and a steep improvement in performance. In its preliminary settlement for the first half of this year, AIO recorded revenue of 150 billion won and operating profit of 45 billion won. Given that last year's annual revenue was 17.8 billion won with an operating loss of 13.1 billion won, the picture has completely turned around in just six months. This came as the company solidified its supply base by securing major domestic electronics firms and overseas AI infrastructure companies as customers.
Based on first-half performance alone, AIO surpasses FADU, Korea's leading NAND controller company. FADU recorded revenue of 132.7 billion won and operating profit of 16.3 billion won in the first half of this year. However, the two companies' main markets differ. FADU focuses on enterprise SSD controllers for data centers, while AIO's mainstay is edge products used in smartphones, automobiles, and industrial devices.
The market capitalization of FADU, the only comparable company in Korea, stood at approximately 3.5271 trillion won based on the closing price on the 22nd. FADU's stock movement is expected to serve as a reference point for setting the offering price when AIO pursues its listing.
AIO remained outside the market's attention until the AI industry took off in earnest. As losses accumulated from prolonged research and development (R&D) investment, there were considerable views questioning its growth potential. Korea Investment Partners and LB Investment, early-stage investors, failed to recover their investments by the time their funds matured and even directly took over the shares they held.
R&D that consumed tens of billions of won over 15 years began to bear fruit as the AI era arrived. This is because demand for high-performance, high-capacity NAND rapidly increased as generative AI spread beyond data centers to edge areas such as smartphones, automobiles, and robots. To stably store vast amounts of data and quickly retrieve necessary information, not only NAND flash but also the performance of the controller that manages it must be supported together.
Based on its steep earnings growth, AIO plans to pursue a KOSDAQ listing targeting as early as this year or next year. The listing underwriters are KB Securities and Shinhan Securities. "Based on the technological capabilities we have built up, we will begin full-scale entry into the global market starting this year and rapidly increase our market share," an AIO official said.