Kneron, co-founded by Liu and Frank Chang in 2015, develops low-powered, reconfigurable AI chips for applications such as driverless vehicles. The company has a customer base of around 30 brands, including Garmin, Naver and Quanta, and has partnerships with automotive customers like JVC Kenwood through its acquisition of imaging tech provider Otus. Liu said Kneron will focus on strategic directions in AI, such as autonomous cars, to avoid direct competition with existing dominant players.
Key takeaways:
- Kneron, an AI chip developer, has raised $49 million in an extension to its Series B round from investors including Foxconn, Alltek, Horizon Ventures, Liteon Technology Corp, Adata and Palpilot.
- The new funding will be used to bolster Kneron’s go-to-market efforts in the automotive industry and expand its team, particularly the R&D division.
- Kneron's AI chips are designed to interface with existing systems, such as the sensors on driverless vehicles, and can run algorithms ranging from face and body detection models to models to generate text.
- Despite competition from companies like NeuReality, Hailo, Mythic, Flex Logix, Google, and Amazon, Kneron has a customer base that spans around 30 brands including Garmin, Naver and Quanta.