AI Chip Maker Intellifusion Secures $141 Million in Pre-IPO Funding Round

Shenzen-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip maker Intellifusion announced that it has secured $141 million in a pre-IPO funding round led by Utrust VC, Forebright Capital and existing investor Walden International.

Intellifusion focuses on the visual intelligence field, with its AI technology stack combining AI algorithms, chips and big data platforms. The company, which was established in 2014, provides AI products and services in a variety of sectors including public safety, social governance, and the Artificial Intelligence of Things (AioT) field.

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, Intellifusion launched an AI epidemic prevention and control program that uses facial recognition, AI temperature measurement, historical trajectory analysis and relationship map analysis to provide assistance to agencies and departments in their efforts to protect the public from the spread of the virus.

This AI epidemic solution has been applied in a number of cities in China at government facilities, hospitals, hotels, transportation hubs and industrial facilities.

Intellifusion joins fellow AI startups AISpeech — which specializes in AI-driven voice recognition — and 4Paradigm, which recently raised $58 and $230 million in funding respectively, in what has been a fairly busy period for Chinese startups. Though the demand for AI products may be driven higher, that demand will have to be greater than the decrease in spending that is likely to come as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic drags global economies further down.

Sources: China Money Network, China Economic Review

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April 9, 2020 – by Tony Bitzionis