China’s AI Startup 4Paradigm Raises Over 1 Billion Yuan in Series C Funding
On Dec. 19, 4Paradigm, a Chinese AI technology and service provider, announced it has completed its Series C funding round, raising over one billion yuan ($145 million). The rising star in AI is now valued at around 1.2 billion dollars.
Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of Communications are among the new investors for this funding round. With Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, and China Construction Bank as original shareholders, 4Paradigm is the only startup that has been invested in by all Big Five state-owned commercial banks in China.
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In addition to investors from the banking industry, China Reform Holdings, Tuspark, China Poly Group, China Three Gorges Corporation and CITIC Group were brought in as strategic shareholders. Sequoia Capital China, an original investor from A round, also participated in the C round.
Founded in early 2015, 4Paradigm introduced a low threshold, end-to-end machine learning platform “Prophet” in 2016. “Prophet” enables enterprises to independently develop AI applications, optimize operational efficiency, improve the decision-making process, and promote AI upgrading.
To date, 4Paradigm has completed over 2,000 AI application cases in areas including finance, medical care, government, energy, retail and media. Taking the financial field as an example, 4Paradigm works with major banks to build AI applications and help them transit from an information system to an intelligent one. By far, the total assets of the financial institutions served by 4Paradigm exceeds 50 trillion yuan ($7.25 trillion).
“We will continue to invest in technology, accelerate the expansion and application of AI platforms in a variety of fields, and provide better services for customers and partners,” said Dai Wenyuan, founder and CEO of 4Paradigm.
Dai is a leading expert in transfer learning, a senior scientist at Baidu, and served as the principal researcher at Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab.
Featured photo credit to 4Paradigm
