AI Chipmaker Axera Secures “Hundreds of Millions of Yuan” in Series A+ Financing, Led by Meituan

Chinese AI vision chip maker Axera announced it has secured hundreds of millions in Chinese yuan from a Series A+ funding round, led by Inno Chip and Meituan, followed by GGV Capital, Fengyuan Capital and others.

In April of this year, Axera completed two separate rounds of financing, earning investment also worth hundreds of million of yuan.

Established in May 2019, Axera focuses on the R&D of AI-vision chips with high performance and low power consumption, while independently developing neural network processors. The funds from these three rounds of financing will be used for product R&D, market expansion, mass production and business landing.

Dr. Qiu Xiaoshen, CEO of Axera, has worked for more than 20 years in the chip industry. Before founding Axera, he was CTO of UNISOC, Vice President of Broadcom Corporation, and Chief Scientist of AT&T Labs.

In December 2020, AX630A, the first AI chip independently developed by Axera, entered mass production, and can now support various AI visual tasks such as object detection and facial recognition.

The target markets of Axera include smart cities, smart retail, wireless community, smart homes, Internet of Things devices and other fields.

“In the future, we hope to apply our products in consumer electronics, intelligent driving and other scenarios to meet the rising demand for intelligent devices in China’s infrastructure construction,” Qiu said.

SEE ALSO: Tencent Buys Over 11 Million Shares in Meituan, Raising Nearly $400 Million and Acquiring a 17.2% Stake in the Firm