China-based facial recognition software provider Megvii has raised “at least” $600m in a funding round featuring e-commerce group Alibaba, Bloomberg reported today.
The corporate was joined in the round by investment firm Boyu Capital, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, adding that the round was set to close in the next few weeks, at which point the company would begin work on raising a second tranche.
Founded in 2011 and also known as Face++, Megvii provides artificial intelligence-based facial recognition technology that incorporates image data on 1.3 billion citizens taken from a Chinese Ministry of Public Security database.
The technology helps consumer and service-based products incorporate facial recognition into their functioning, but Megvii has also worked with law enforcement to track down suspects.
Megvii intends to spend most of its latest funding on an initiative that would involve the technology being deployed in unmanned retail stores.
Legend Star, an early-stage investment vehicle for conglomerate Legend Holdings, supplied an undisclosed amount of seed funding for Megvii, in advance of a 2013 series A round backed by Innovation Works that was sized in the seven-figure dollar range.
The company closed $100m in funding at the end of 2016, in a round that included $20m from manufacturing services provider Foxconn as well as investment from CCB International Holdings, a subsidiary of financial services firm China Construction Bank.
Foxconn returned for a $460m round closed by Megvii in October 2017 that was led by Russia-China Investment Fund and backed by diversified conglomerate SK Group and Alibaba’s financial services affiliate, Ant Financial.
Megvii raised $22m in series B funding from investors including Innovation Works and Qiming Venture Partners in 2014, before adding $25m in a series B+ round in 2015 featuring the same investors.
The company’s most prominent competitor in China’s facial recognition technology sector is SenseTime, which is reportedly in line to raise almost $1bn from SoftBank Vision Fund.