French microprocessor developer Kalray raises $26 million

French Kalray, a developer of microprocessors, has raised a round of $26 million. The funding comes from new investors Safran and Pengpai, and existing investors ACE Management, CEA Investissement, EUREKAP! Héléa Financière and INOCAP Gestion. The company has raised over $65 million to date.

Kalray has been developing microprocessors with a unique architecture called MPPA (Massively Parallel Processor Array). This technology increases the processors' real-time processing abilities while maintaining very low energy consumption. The microprocessors are primarily used in aeronautics, defense, autonomous vehicles, and data centers.

"The arrival of new technologies, like artificial intelligence and rapid memory storage, will revolutionize our lives, but also create a striking need for high-performance real-time processing over the next few years," said Eric Baissus, CEO of Kalray, in a statement. "Thanks to our microprocessors, Kalray is at the heart of this revolution, capable of offering extraordinary real-time processing abilities. 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 company says it will also use the new capital to accelerate the commercialization of its current products and launch the development of the MPPA® Coolidge, its 3rd generation of microprocessors, which is set to be released in 2018.

Read more: PR Newswire (Press release)