The world’s most valuable AI chip unicorn is born! Still a Chinese company

Text/Observer Network Gu Zhixuan

The world’s most valuable artificial intelligence (AI) chip unicorn was born, and it is still a Chinese company that takes this title.

On February 27, AI chip start-up Horizon Robotics revealed to Observer.com that it had received approximately US$600 million (approximately RMB 4 billion) in Series B financing, with a valuation of RMB 3 billion. US dollars (approximately 20 billion yuan).

In June last year, another Chinese company, Cambricon Technologies, completed hundreds of millions of US dollars in Series B financing, with an overall post-investment valuation of US$2.5 billion (approximately 16.7 billion yuan). At that time, it became The "leader" of global AI chip startups.

From this perspective, Horizon has surpassed the Cambrian era and become the "most valuable" unicorn company in the field of AI chips.

It should be mentioned that among the leading investors in this round of financing, South Korea's SK Hynix, the world's third largest semiconductor supplier, is listed, and the "boss" in this field, Intel ( Intel) led Horizon’s Series A financing as early as 2017. This means that two of the world's top three semiconductor giants have become important shareholders of Horizon.

Horizon's "Journey 1.0 Processor" Picture from Horizon website

It has been established for three years

Horizon told Observer.com that the Series B financing was provided by SK China, SK Hynix and several first-tier Chinese automobile groups (and their funds) jointly led the investment.

Other participating institutions and strategic partners include: China Oceanwide Holdings Group’s Oceanwide Investment, China Minsheng Capital, CITIC Lyon’s CSOBOR Fund and Ocean Pine Capital, etc. At the same time, this round of financing also received support from existing shareholders including Morningside Capital, Hillhouse Capital, Yunhui Capital and Linear Capital.

This is also the second time that Horizon, which was founded just over three years ago, received heavyweight investment after receiving more than US$100 million in Series A financing led by Intel in the second half of 2017.

The company also said that the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in Horizon by several domestic first-tier automobile groups has become the largest investment by Chinese automobile companies in the field of AI.

Yu Kai, founder and CEO of Horizon, told Observer.com, “The important strategic partners and resources introduced in this financing will further accelerate the pace of Horizon’s R&D and commercialization.”

In addition, SK China President Wu Zuoyi pointed out that "Horizon's products and solutions in the fields of AI processors and autonomous driving are impressive."

Yu Kai, who previously worked for Baidu, launched Baidu Autonomous Driving in 2013 project. However, in May 2015, he resigned from Baidu and founded Horizon in July of the same year.

Yu Kai’s data map from Visual China

Before receiving the latest round of financing, Horizon also posted a “report card.”

In 2017, Horizon carried out large-scale tape-out (trial production) and released China's first edge AI processor - Horizon "Journey" series processor for intelligent driving and AIoT (artificial intelligence) Horizon "Rising Sun" series processors for edge computing (Internet of Things).

In 2018, the company relied on its hardware-software AI processor technology to successively release the Matrix autonomous driving computing platform and the Horizon XForce edge AI computing platform.

Currently, the Matrix autonomous driving computing platform has been supplied to the world’s top L4 autonomous driving manufacturers on a large scale. At the end of 2018, the company launched software and hardware integrated solutions such as Navnet crowdsourcing high-precision map collection and positioning solutions based on the Matrix computing platform, and has begun to gradually implement them.

In the field of intelligent driving, Horizon’s partners include Audi, Bosch, Changan, BYD, SAIC, GAC, etc.

According to Reuters, the software and hardware jointly developed by Horizon and Audi helped the latter obtain a license to test autonomous driving on roads in Wuxi, China.

Screenshots of Horizon Intelligent Driving Demonstration Video

Chinese companies have yet to catch up with industry giants

Observer.com also noted that although Horizon has gained the favor of many capitals, But in the field of AI chips, Chinese companies have yet to catch up with industry giants.

Compass Intelligence, a market research organization, evaluated more than 100 chip companies around the world. In the final ranking of AI chip companies, 24 companies were shortlisted, with the top three being Nvidia, Intel and IBM. Huawei is the highest-ranked Chinese company, ranking 12th.

Horizon also made it onto this list, ranking 24th, with the Cambrian mentioned above being one place ahead of it.

Other shortlisted Chinese companies include MediaTek, Imagination, Rockchip, and Verisilcon, ranking 14th, 15th, 20th, and 21st respectively.

Picture from Compass Intelligence

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