France-based microprocessor producer Kalray closed a $26m round yesterday featuring Safran Corporate Ventures, the early-stage investment vehicle for aerospace and defence equipment provider Safran.

The round included CEA Investissement, the venture capital arm of state-funded research agency Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA), as well as investment fund Pengpai, private equity firm Ace Management, VC firm Eurekap, Héléa Financière and Inocap Gestion.

Kalray was spun out of CEA in 2008 and develops manycore microprocessors that can deliver higher performance while consuming less power.

The $15m first tranche of the round will be supplied to Kalray immediately, with the remaining $11m to come before the end of this year.

The funding will be used to begin development of MPPA Coolidge, which will be Kalray’s third generation of microprocessors, which the company plans to release in 2018.

Eric Baissus, chief executive of Kalray, said: “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 round boosted Kalray’s overall funding to $65m since it was founded, the company said, $8m of which came in a 2014 round featuring Ace Management, CEA Investissement and Eurekap. It also named French state-owned investment bank BPIfrance as a past investor.

Kalray, a France-based microprocessor manufacturer backed by the state-owned investment bank Bpifrance, secured $26m in capital yesterday from investors including CEA Investissement.

CEA Investissement, the investment arm of research institute Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), was joined by Safran Corporate Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of aerospace and defence company Safran.

Pengpai, Ace Management, Eurekap, Héléa Financière and Incocap Gestion also contributed to the funding round.

Kalray was spun out of CEA in 2008. The company is working on microprocessors that feature a massively parallel multi-core architecture that increases a processor’s real-time computing capabilities while maintaining very low energy consumption.

The microprocessors are aimed at sectors such as aeronautics, defence and autonomous vehicles as well as data storage acceleration and high-speed networks.

The money will support an accelerated commercialisation of the company’s existing products and the development of its third-generation microprocessor, to be released next year.

The company also hopes to drive recruitment, particularly with a view of strengthening its engineering team in Grenoble, and to boost its commercial network internationally. In total, the company expects to hire 15 new staff.

The company has raised $65m in funding to date, according to the latest press release. Bpifrance is an existing shareholder, according to the same release, though details about its involvement could not be ascertained.

According to deals database Pitchbook, CEA Investissement previously participated in an $8m round in 2014 alongside Ace and Eurekap.

In 2011, CEA Investissement took part in a $7.8m series B in 2011 alongside Rhône-Alpes Création, a public-private partnership focused on the Rhône-Alpes region, Ace, Eurekap, Expansinvest, Inocap, Oseo and Promelys Participants.

CEA is one of the 18 institutions that make up Université Paris-Saclay, established in 2014.