Chinese AI player Aibee gets $60m Series A
China and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) solutions provider Aibee has raised $60 million in a Series A round of funding led by Sequoia Capital China and Red Star Macalline, a Hong Kong-listed furniture mall operator.
Other participants include Lenovo Capital & Incubator Group, the VC arm of Chinese technology company Lenovo, as well as K2VC, C Ventures, and Zhongli Hecai Capital. Aibee has received around $100 million in funding since 2017.
Founded in November 2017, the company aims to upgrade traditional industries through AI. It develops technologies including computer vision, speech recognition, natural language processing and big data analytics.
Customized services include intelligent parking lots and facial recognition systems. Partners include Red Star Mascalline, Hong Kong shopping mall operator K11, and Zhejiang Shenda Intelligent Technology, a Chinese AI firm providing services to clients in the tourism industry.
Similar to its peers in this space, Aibee has billed a strong R&D team as one of its biggest advantages. The company’s founder, Yuanqing Lin, served as an executive at Baidu Research, an AI R&D arm of the Chinese search engine giant.
Aibee has also recently recruited Shenghuo Zhu, formerly the head of Alibaba's AI-backed Decision Intelligence Lab, to be in charge of machine learning. Future plans include opening new research labs in Seattle and Boston and hiring more talent in the AI space. The team currently includes more than 100 people.
Companies engaged in AI corporate solutions have mushroomed in recent years amid a national push to develop the technology and rising demand for improved operational efficiencies related to China's slowing economy. In November alone, at least three Chinese AI companies have announced funding rounds including Aibee, Elens Data, a natural language analysis solutions provider, and Data Grand, a natural language processing developer.
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