On December 22, AI Chip Company Horizon issued an announcement saying that it has initiated a Series C financing totaling more than 700 million U.S. dollars. It has now completed 150 million U.S. dollars. It is funded by Wuyuan Capital (formerly Morningside Capital), Hillhouse Ventures, and today. Capital jointly led the investment.
"LatePost" exclusively learned that Horizon has advanced this round of financing with a pre-investment valuation of US$3.5 billion, which corresponds to a market-to-sales ratio (PS) of 100 times. The company plans to complete all financing within the year and is considering listing on the science and technology innovation board in the second half of 2021.
reporter learned that Horizon's revenue in 2020 will be 200-230 million yuan, 70% of which will come from the provision of chips and other products to automakers. Customers include Changan, FAW and Ideal Automobile. Other revenue comes from the AIoT (Internet of Things) business, with partners including Xiaomi.
has not responded to the above information. It has been nearly 2 years since
was a large-scale financing round on the horizon. In February 2019, Horizon announced the completion of a US$600 million Series B financing, which was jointly led by SK China, SK Hynix and several Chinese first-tier automobile groups (and its funds). After this round of financing, Horizon is valued at USD 3 billion. The valuation of
Horizon's current round of financing only increased by 17%. A person close to the horizon told "LatePost" that Horizon believes that compared to the 150 times the market-to-sales ratio of Cambrian and Mobileye (when acquired by Intel ), the current round of US$3.5 billion valuation is less than 100%. The market-to-sales ratio of times is still conservative.
However, investors who have investigated Horizon believe that it is not easy for Horizon to obtain a higher valuation. The performance of the products currently launched by Horizon does not meet the needs of OEMs, and the market promotion effect is poor. Next, if you want to develop the advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) chips with greater demand and higher technical requirements from OEMs, more funds are needed. , And there is great uncertainty, these factors will affect the mentality of investors.
It is understood that the funds obtained by Horizon's current round of financing will be used for the research and development of the fifth-generation Journey series chip (J5). This product will be used for the L3 level of the standard Tesla fully automated driving (FSD) chip. Autonomous driving, planned to be trial production at the end of the year, and mass production in 2022-lags behind the Tesla by more than two years, but the advantage of the horizon is that it can be opened to more car manufacturers.
Horizon was established in July 2015. The founder Yu Kai is the former head of Baidu Deep Learning Research Institute. He mainly studies machine learning algorithms and has not entered the field of chip research and development. Currently, Horizon has 1,000 employees, 75% of which are research and development. The main products are divided into the journey (car) series of chips and the rising sun (AIoT) series of chips. Both have released the third generation of products and launched the corresponding tool chain products. Since the establishment of
, Horizon has completed 6 financings. Investors include Wuyuan Capital, Hillhouse Ventures, Zhen Fund , Linear Capital, Sequoia China, DST Global, Xiangfeng Investment, Qingyun Venture Capital, Shuanghu Capital, Intel , SK China, GAC Capital and more than 20 institutions. (He Qianming)
