General-Purpose Intelligent Chip Designer Biren Technology Completes Major Pre-B Round Financing
Dedicated to achieving breakthroughs in domestically produced high-end general-purpose AI computing chips.
Following its record-setting Series A round in mid-June — the largest in the industry in recent years — general-purpose intelligent chip design company Biren Technology has announced another major investment, closing a Pre-B round. In less than a year since its founding, the company has raised nearly RMB 2 billion in total.
This round was led by Hillhouse, with participation from Gaorong Ventures, Sky9 Capital, Jinpu Technology Fund, Cornerstone Capital, Haichuang Fund of Funds, and other notable investors. Existing investors Pine VC, IDG Capital, Yunhui Capital, and Zhuhai Da Hengqin Group also added to their stakes.
The proceeds will continue to fund accelerated product R&D and market expansion.
Founded in 2019, Biren Technology's team comprises core professionals and researchers from the chip and cloud computing sectors at home and abroad. The company is dedicated to developing original general-purpose computing architectures, building efficient software and hardware platforms, and providing integrated solutions in intelligent computing. In terms of development path, Biren Technology is initially focused on cloud-based general-purpose intelligent computing, with plans to gradually catch up to existing solutions across AI training and inference, graphics rendering, and high-performance general-purpose computing — achieving breakthroughs in domestic high-end general-purpose intelligent chips.
Biren Technology was born during a golden era for chip industry entrepreneurship and development that China has not seen in decades. The country's massive application market has created opportunities in the chip sector, and localized high-end AI chips designed for multiple AI application areas — including security, autonomous driving, healthcare, and smart home — will claim their place. Facing entirely new domains and competitive landscapes, leaders must advance both speed and quality in tandem.
Biren Technology is led by veteran chip experts with decades of experience and staffed by a large corps of experienced engineers, making it a world-class chip design team. The company's founder and chairman, Wen Zhang, previously served as president at SenseTime. Dr. Zhang spent many years working on Wall Street, co-founded Enraytek in 2011, and held key positions at multiple high-tech companies including Konka Lighting. He holds a JD from Harvard University and an MBA from Columbia University.
"Chip design, and general-purpose intelligent chips in particular, is a classic capital-intensive and talent-intensive industry," Zhang said. "Combined with large-scale application scenarios, these constitute the three pillars driving a company toward success." He added that the strong support from multiple top-tier investment firms across both funding rounds will help Biren Technology accelerate its industrial ecosystem layout and lay a solid foundation for its long-term development.
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