E-commerce group Alibaba led a $600m series C round for China-based artificial intelligence software provider SenseTime today that valued it at $4.5bn, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Retail group Suning and Singaporean government-owned investment firm Temasek also participated in the round, which the company claims is the largest ever raised by an AI technology developer.
SenseTime supplies computer vision and deep learning technology based on its supercomputing platform, powering functions such as facial and textual character recognition, video analysis and autonomous driving software.
The company’s customers and strategic partners include Suning, which uses its facial recognition technology for checkout-free shopping, and Alibaba.
Alibaba invested $227m in SenseTime in November 2017 and it is likely that formed its contribution to the series C round. Mobile chipmaker Qualcomm reportedly provided an undisclosed amount of series C funding the month before but was not officially named as a participant.
SenseTime had raised $410m in a July 2017 series B round featuring conglomerate Dalian Wanda and venture capital group IDG Capital, the latter of which had previously led a series A round of undisclosed size for the company.
CDH Investments, StarVC, China International Capital, Co-Stone Capital, China Merchants Securities International, Morningside Venture Capital, Everbright-IDG Industrial Fund, Advantech Capital, Zhongping Guoyu Asset Management, Huarong International Financial Holdings, TCL Capital, Infore Group and Sailing Capital also backed the series B.
Li Xu, co-founder and CEO of SenseTime, said: “SenseTime has established an AI ecosystem anchored with robust research, deep industry collaboration, and diverse partnerships.
“Our round C funding will maximise these advantages by accelerating the development of a global footprint with a larger ecosystem incorporating both domestic and overseas partners. The funding will also help us widen the scope for more industrial application of AI, thus increasing the value of SenseTime’s global ecosystem.”
Joe Tsai, Alibaba’s executive vice-chairman, added: “SenseTime is doing pioneering work in artificial intelligence. We are especially impressed by their R&D capabilities in deep learning and visual computing.
“Our business at Alibaba is already seeing tangible benefits from our investments in AI and we are committed to further investment. Our strategic partnership with SenseTime will spark more innovation and create value for society.”