Apr 19, 2022

Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio AI chip developer Houmo.ai announced Tuesday that it has secured several hundred million yuan in a pre-A+ round of financing . The leading investors were Matrix Partners and GP Yueda Automobile Fund, while co-investors were Lenovo Sub-Fund of China SME Development Fund and Tianchuang Venture Capital. Prior investors Qiming Venture Partners and MSA Capital also joined this round. The fresh capital will be implemented to step up the firm’s investment in R&D of AI chips with high computing power, and to accelerate its expansion and layout in the fields of intelligent driving and pan-robotics. Founded at the end of 2020, Houmo.ai is China’s first developer of AI chips featuring high computing power and based on integrated storage and computing technology. It has more than 100 staff members, and over 70% of its R&D team members hold master’s or doctoral degrees. Its employees hail mainly from well-known chip companies both in China and abroad, such as Nvidia, TI, AMD, Intel and Deepshire. In August 2021, Houmo.ai completed its first chip verification stream. Different from large computer chips with traditional architecture, Houmo.ai chips provide significant advantages in terms of computing power, energy efficiency ratio and costs, lower manufacturing costs and lower latency. Houmo.ai has significantly improved chip performance through underlying architectural innovations, with applications ranging from smart driving, pan-robotic and other scenarios. Over the past year, Houmo.ai has engaged deeply with many customers in the smart driving field such as unmanned vehicles, commercial vehicles and passenger car manufacturers, and some are exploring further intensive cooperation. Wu Qiang, founder and CEO of Houmo.ai, said, “In the coming decade, computing architecture is set firmly on a golden path, and new architectural designs promise lower costs, better energy consumption, security and performance. Precisely with everyone’s support, our company can gain the first big R&D breakthrough of the first chip in the first year of its establishment. New advancements will be published soon.”