The funds followed a US$73 million series A, which saw Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, CDIB, Himax Technologies Inc, Qualcomm, Thundersoft, Sequoia Capital and Weltrend all back the firm.
Hong Kong businessman Li Ka-Shing's venture capital firm Horizons Ventures was the lead investor in the previous $40mn round and has also invested in earlier rounds.
Albert Liu, Kneron’s founder and CEO, said: “In a time when so many companies have cut back on R&D we are thankful to our investors who believe in the work we are doing at Kneron. Kneron is a young company and has achieved a lot since it was founded in 2015, we plan on achieving much more this coming year and this would not be possible without the backing of investors such as Foxconn and Winbond. This is an incredibly exciting time for AI and Kneron will play a crucial role in the development of this technology”.
Liu added: "We are excited to continue our journey with our partners and investors. 2020 was a great year for Kneron, we released the KL720 and made executive-level hires including Davis Chen, Qualcomm’s former Taipei head of engineering. Aside from working on projects with our investors we also plan to release more chips in 2021. Edge AI is still a new concept for many and we are passionate about bringing this technology to everyone."
In June, Kneron unveiled KNEO, an edge AI platform, it said "democratises and personalises AI for all".
