Wuhan-based automotive chip maker SiEngine Technology announced on Tuesday that the firm completed a 500 million yuan ($72.5 million) Series A+ round in Q4 2022.
The round, participated by Teda Venture Capital, Haier Capital, SPDB International Holdings, Wuhan S&T Investment Company, and Tongxi Capital, will be used for product iteration, R&D, as well as scaling up chip production. Existing shareholders Grandsyn Capital, Yuexiu Fund, and Vision Knight Capital also re-upped.
Founded in 2018, SiEngine is backed by UK-based Arm Ltd’s China joint venture ARM China, and ECARX Holdings, a Chinese auto tech startup backed by Geely Holding Group chairman Li Shufu. Previously, Sequoia Capital China led the firm’s Series A funding round of close to 1 billion yuan ($148.2 million) in July 2022.
Besides its Wuhan headquarters, the firm also has R&D centres in Beijing and Shanghai.
SiEngine offers comprehensive solutions for high-end automotive system-on-chips (SoCs), which integrate all or most components of a vehicle’s electronic system. Its offerings range from automotive chips to compatible software and hardware with three major product lines covering smart cockpit multimedia SoCs, autonomous driving chips and in-vehicle central computing chips.
China’s automotive industry attracted $5.5 billion in Q4 2022, up 67% from the same period in 2021 according to DealStreetAsia’s proprietary data. SemiDrive Technology, and CanSemi Technology are among some of the most notable local automobile chip makers that raked in funding last year.