South Korean AI chip designer DeepX closed the first slice of a Series D that values the Pangyo startup at about $2.2 billion, roughly four times its prior mark, Bloomberg reported. Existing backers BNW Investment and DS Asset Management put in about $30 million. DeepX builds low-power AI semiconductors for robots, cameras, and other devices outside data centers, and said in April it had more than 30 mass-production contracts across eight countries. Why it matters: investor appetite is spreading from GPU racks into edge inference silicon. Caveat: the disclosed tranche came only from existing investors, and a larger close by September is still unfinished.