It is reported that AI Chip Horizon plans to raise up to US $200 million and consider listing IPO in Hong Kong.
Chinese artificial intelligence chip startup Horizon Robotics (Horizon) plans to raise $100 million to $200 million and is considering the timing of an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, Bloomberg reported on Aug. 18, citing people familiar with the matter.
The company is currently working with a consultant to assess investor interest in the financing, according to people familiar with the matter. At present, it is only preliminary, and the details of financing (including financing size, valuation, etc.) are still likely to change. Horizon, which is currently valued at about $8 billion, is waiting for more favourable market conditions and plans to list on IPO in Hong Kong.
Last year, there were media reports that Horizon had considered listing in the United States and later in Hong Kong, raising as much as $1 billion.
Horizon is in an emerging area of advanced technology development as China seeks to become a global leader in areas such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors, while tensions between the US and China are driving China to develop key technologies at home.
Not long ago, SAIC and Horizon announced that they would deepen strategic cooperation to build a future-oriented intelligent driving computing platform based on Horizon high-performance big arithmetic AI chips to promote the development and application of high-end intelligent driving products.
It is reported that around the full-stack solution of SAIC "Galaxy" smart car (including computing platform, electronic architecture, software platform, intelligent cloud platform, cabin driving integration digital experience products), Horizon and SAIC will work together to build a smart driving computing platform with a journey 5 chip and a domestic computing platform with the next generation big computing chip journey 6. The mass production models of the two major computing platforms are expected to hit the ground in 2023 and 2025 respectively.
It is worth noting that SAIC and Horizon launched a strategic cooperation in 2017 to jointly promote the landing of regulation-grade AI chips; in 2019, SAIC participated in Horizon B round financing and became its largest institutional shareholder. In 2020, SAIC and Horizon established the "SAIC and Horizon artificial Intelligence Joint Laboratory". The re-cooperation between the two sides is expected to further deepen the matching of each other in the smart driving business and promote SAIC to go further in the field of smart driving.
