ESWIN Computer Technology, a Chinese provider of artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) chips and services, has secured 3 billion yuan ($421 million) in a Series D financing round.
The round was co-led by two state-owned investment platforms including Beijing Financial Street Capital Operation Group, and Guoxin Venture Capital, according to a release published by Lighthouse Capital, which served as the sole financial advisor of the deal.
A slew of state-affiliated investors also participated in the round including E-town Capital, GF Qianhe Investment, China Jianyin Investment, Guangzhou Industrial Investment and Capital Operation Holding Group, China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund II, and Ceyuan Ventures, per the release.
Shanghai-listed Cloudwalk Technology, which develops facial recognition software, also joined the round.
The Beijing-based IoT chip developer secured 2.5 billion yuan ($392.4 million) in a Series C round of financing jointly led by Goldstone Investment, the private investment subsidiary of Chinese investment bank CITIC Securities, and China Internet Investment Fund (CIIF) in December 2021, in a bid to step up R&D investment and talent recruitment.
Founded in 2019, ESWIN Computer Technology is the IoT chip development arm of Beijing ESWIN Technology Group. Founded in March 2016, the Beijing-based group is engaged in integrated circuits (ICs) and solutions, silicon materials, and advanced packaging & testing.
Xi’an ESWIN Material, the IC and solutions unit of the group, has secured 4 billion yuan ($575.7 million) in a Series C round led by CNBM New Materials Fund, making it the largest-ever funding round raised by a semiconductor firm in December 2022.
With RISC-V chip technology as its core, ESWIN Computer Technology will use the fresh funding in its R&D, the firm said in the release.
RISC-V is an open standard Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) based on established reduced instruction set computer principles. Its open-source nature enables firms to design integrated circuits at a cheaper cost.
This standard open-source architecture has caught the attention of major Chinese tech giants since its release in the open community in 2015. Most recently, Shanghai-based RISC-V chip technology company StarFive snagged a strategic investment of 1 billion yuan ($146.5 million) from Baidu Inc in March, per Reuters.
