China machine vision company AlpsenTek raises $30m

Glory Ventures, Shenzhen Angel FOF, Lenovo Capital & Incubator Group, and Zero2IPO Group also participated, as did Shanghai-listed machine vision solutions provider ArcSoft and a fund from Hong Kong-listed optical lenses producer Sunny Optical.

AlpsenTek was founded in 2019 to overcome the weaknesses of traditional image sensors in adapting to machine vision. It has offices in Beijing, Nanjing, Shenzhen, and Switzerland, with a R&D team of more than 100.

Traditional image sensors capture complete images based on frames sampled at a fixed frequency, primarily to take colourful static pictures on a mobile phone. Combining this process with computer vision leads results in deficiencies such as blurred motion shots, excessive bandwidth and power consumption, and vulnerability to ambient light interference.

AlpsenTek has developed a bionic vision sensor chip with faster speed, lower power consumption, less data usage, and greater dynamic range. It has also developed “hybrid vision” technology, which combines the advantages of traditional imaging with biomimetic vision in 2021. These products will achieve small-batch production this year. They are planned to be widely used in smart homes, security monitoring, and self-driving vehicles.

In 2017, AlpsenTek raised a pre-Series A of about USD 15.5m that was led by Glory and internet-of-things and video security supplier Hikvision with support from Cowin, Lenovo, Sunny Optical, CAS Star, iFlytek Venture Capital, Allwinner Technology, and Fargo Venture Capital. Lenovo and CAS Star provided a seed round in 2019.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Technology
• China
• semiconductor
• Cowin Capital
• Glory Ventures
• Lenovo Capital