China automotive chip maker Semidrive raises $154m

Other investors include Matrix Partners China, CTC Capital, Vertex Ventures China, and domestic battery manufacturer CATL.

Founded in 2018, Nanjing-based Semidrive focuses on high-reliability and high-performance automotive system on a chip (SoC). SoC integrates all or most components of a computer. As carmakers move towards centralized domain architecture, it is seen as the single most powerful electrical component of a vehicle.

The company has released nine SoC solutions for smart cockpits, autonomous driving, central gateways, and microcontroller units (MCUs). In April, upgrades were introduced across the entire product range. Semidrive has also launched an open autonomous driving platform, which helps customers run tests on chips.

The company, which has R&D centers in Shanghai and Beijing, claims to have filled the gap in the Chinese market for high-end SoC. In March, against the backdrop of a global chip shortage, it received orders totaling one million units for delivery over the next 12 months. Chinese carmakers cannot source these chips from overseas suppliers.

"Semidrive represents our first investment in the intelligent automotive industry value chain. Smart car chips and autonomous driving algorithms are two important parts of the industry, and in the past three years, Semidrive has achieved mass production across a variety of products," said Chenhao Xu, a partner at Pro Capital.

He added that Semidrive has the potential to become a global leading automotive chip company.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Technology
• China
• semiconductor
• Matrix Partners
• Vertex Ventures
• V Fund
• automobiles