Hillhouse leads $55m round for China AI developer Yitu

Existing investors including Yufeng Capital, Sequoia Capital, Banyan Capital, and ZhenFund also took part in the round.

Yitu was founded in 2012 by Long Zhu, who has a PhD in statistics from the University of California, and Chenxi Lin, formerly an engineer at Alibaba Group’s Aliyun computing unit. The company is focused on AI technology in machine vision, listening and understanding. It has already developed related services and products for the security, finance, transportation and healthcare sectors.

For example, China Merchants Bank and Pudong Development Bank are using Yitu's visual recognition technology for client authentication. Yitu has also partnered with Aliyun to provide a cloud-based platform that allows police in Guiyang province to track traffic violations and supplied technology solutions to China Customs and China Immigration Inspection.

The company raised an angel round from ZhenFund in 2013, and a Series A round from Sequoia and Banyan in 2014. Last year, it received tens of millions of dollars in a Series B funding from Yunfeng.

The majority of the proceeds from the latest round will be used to develop AI technology for healthcare applications, according to a statement. The company has already developed its first smart medical imaging platform in China, which helps doctors make diagnoses based on patients’ medical imaging and past medical records.

Other investment activity in this space includes a $60 million round from Sailing Capital for Sense Time, an AI start-up that specializes in facial and specific object scanning, recognition and analysis technology.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Technology
• Expansion
• China
• TMT
• Venture
• Growth capital
• Yunfeng Capital
• Hillhouse Capital Management
• Sequoia Capital
• Banyan Capital
• ZhenFund