China chip design company Eswin raises $283m

Eswin was founded in 2016 and is chaired by Dongsheng Wang, who founded a leading display company called BOE in 1993 and is regarded as a pioneer in China’s semiconductor display industry. It focuses on integrated circuits and services in three core areas, including display, artificial intelligence (AI) data processing, and wireless connectivity.

Application areas include mobile devices, smart homes, smart transportation, and industrial internet-of-things. Multiple products have been mass-produced, and at least one AI data processing chip has been taped out.

Eswin has five domestic R&D centers, manufacturing bases across four Chinese cities, and two overseas bases in the UK and South Korea.  Marketing and sales branches have been set up in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Taiwan, Korea, and Silicon Valley.

This is a popular area for Chinese VCs, with recent investment including flat screen display-focused Yunyinggu raising RMB200 million in Series C funding led by Qiming Venture Partners. Meanwhile, Lightelligence, a US and China-based manufacturer of optical chips, has raised a $26 million Series A round led by Matrix Partners China and China International Capital Corporation.

A number of adjacent technologies have also benefited from the momentum, including LiDAR, which is used to detect obstacles in autonomous driving. Hesai Technology, a China-based LiDAR specialist, recently raised a $173 million Series C round. In March, Bosheng Guangdian, which develops optical semiconductors featuring vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers used in facial recognition, raised RMB100 million.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Technology
• IDG capital
• Legend Capital
• China
• semiconductor
• artificial intelligence
• manufacturing