Sapeon Supported by SKT Merged for $1 Billion

South Korean artificial intelligence chip startups Sapeon and Rebellions will merge into a company worth at least $1 billion, one of two artificial intelligence transactions reached by SK Telecom in just two days.
After the merger of Sapeon, which holds 62.5% of SKT’s shares, and Rebellions, which is invested by KT, it will create South Korea’s largest artificial intelligence chip company with a value of approximately KRW 1.38 trillion (USD 1 billion).
In the latest round of financing in January this year, Rebellions was valued at 880 billion Korean won ($640 million). Sapeon’s market value is 500 billion Korean won (equivalent to 360 million US dollars).
SKT and Rebellions stated in a joint statement, “The next 2 to 3 years will be a ‘golden period’ for South Korea to establish a foothold in the global artificial intelligence semiconductor market.”

They stated that they will accelerate due diligence and shareholder approval, and expect to launch a new merged company within one year.
Rebellions CFO Shin Sungkyue told Bloomberg that the merger will not change the company’s IPO plan, although the timeline may change. The company has had preliminary discussions with potential consultants regarding the possibility of going public in the second half of 2025.
It is speculated that Rebellions will represent Park Sung hyun in the highest position in the merged company.
Sapeon, which was spun off from SKT’s R&D department, designed South Korea’s first artificial intelligence data center semiconductor chip in 2020. Its business scope also includes autonomous driving, edge, and high-performance artificial intelligence.
Last April, Rebellions’ Atom chip outperformed competitors such as Nvidia and Qualcomm in MLPerf benchmark tests for Large Language Models (LLMs) and Artificial Intelligence Vision, attracting attention.
Rebellions was founded in 2020 by former SpaceX employee, CEO Park, and Chief Technology Officer Oh Jin wook, who previously designed artificial intelligence chips for IBM. In addition to KT, its shareholders also include South Korean Internet giant Kakao and Korea Industrial Bank.
In another transaction announced on Thursday, SKT announced that it will invest $10 million in American artificial intelligence search company Perplexity.

In February of this year, SK Telecom announced at the World Mobile Communications Conference that it would provide Permlexity’s artificial intelligence search service to SK Telecom users. SK Telecom stated that this will strengthen its artificial intelligence assistant services.
In August last year, SKT also invested $100 million in investing in Silicon Valley artificial intelligence company Aerospace. The company stated that it is collaborating with the company to create a multilingual Master of Laws program for telecommunications companies.