Kneron, a Taiwan-based artificial intelligence technology developer backed by corporates Qualcomm, Alibaba, Thundersoft and Himax Technologies, secured $40m yesterday in a funding round led by venture capital firm Horizons Ventures, VentureBeat reported.
Founded in 2015, Kneron is working on on-device edge AI technology that will be able to work with cloud-based AI products on devices, while increasing privacy and the speed of hardware systems.
The funding will go to research concentrating on algorithms for on-device machine learning and semiconductor design. The company displayed the latest iteration of its technology, the KL720 chip, at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month.
Albert Liu, chief executive of Kneron, told VentureBeat: “We have a reconfigurable AI engine that can simultaneously support audio, video, 2D, and 3D, and we are not only a chip company.
“We are a total solution company that can provide a solution with a pertained model, so that is almost like a turnkey solution.”
The company has now raised $73m altogether, Horizons Ventures having also led its $18m series A1 round in mid-2018.
E-commerce firm Alibaba’s Entrepreneur Fund had led Kneron’s $10m series A round the previous year, investing with fabless semiconductor producer Himax, mobile internet technology provider Thundersoft, CDIB, Sequoia Capital and Cyzone Angel Fund.
