What the business is
Maker of low-power reconfigurable AI chips (ASICs) for devices such as driverless-vehicle sensors
The bet
Low-power, reconfigurable edge AI chips can win automotive customers in niches that the dominant players do not contest
Starting capital
$49 million Series B extension from investors including Foxconn, Alltek, Horizon Ventures, Liteon, Adata and PalPilot; $190 million total
How it started
Kneron was co-founded in 2015 by Albert Liu, previously at Qualcomm and Samsung, and Frank Chang, a National Academy of Engineering member. They set out to build ASICs for AI, supplying low-powered, reconfigurable chips that interface with existing systems such as vehicle sensors and run models from face detection to text generation.
What happened
Kneron acquired imaging tech provider Otus in April 2023, giving it automotive partnerships such as JVC Kenwood. Liu claimed revenue in the double-digit millions and a base of about 30 brands including Garmin, Naver and Quanta. It faced NeuReality, Hailo, Mythic and Flex Logix, plus Google's TPUs, Amazon's Inferentia and Nvidia.
How it ended up
On 26 September 2023 Kneron announced the $49M Series B extension, taking total funding to $190M, to bolster go-to-market in automotive and grow the team, with emphasis on R&D. Liu said that for now it would target strategic directions such as autonomous cars that avoid direct competition with dominant players, and challenge incumbents later through third-party collaborations.
What has to be true
Liu said automotive demand for chips was robust and generative AI was driving chip demand
VC funding for chip startups doubled from 2017 to 2022, per PitchBook
Kneron's low-power reconfigurable design suited edge devices such as vehicle sensors
Avoiding direct competition with Nvidia and other dominant players made a niche focus sensible
What can be applied
A small chip company that cannot out-spend Nvidia picks a vertical, here cars, where its low-power design fits, and defers the head-on fight.
Aftermath
As of 2023-09-26, Kneron had raised $190M in total, claimed double-digit-million revenue and about 30 brands as customers, and planned to build its automotive go-to-market.
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