Artificial intelligence chipmaker Hailo today announced it has raised$136 million in a Series C funding round led by Poalim Equity and Gil Agmon. The company said the round brings Hailo’s total funding to $224 million and will be used to further develop the Hailo-8 AI Processor for Edge Devices and for expansion into new and existing markets.
With an architecture based on the neural networks of the human brain, the Hailo-8 “delivers the same performance for smart devices as that provided by large data center computers, paving the way for a future of smarter edge products,” the company said, adding that Hailo has been expanding its product line, recently launching both its M.2 and Mini PCIe high-performance AI acceleration modules for edge devices.
The round was joined by existing investors, including Israeli entrepreneur and Hailo Chairman Zohar Zisapel, Swiss-based ABB Technology Ventures (ATV), London’s Latitude Ventures, Israel’s OurCrowd, and new investors, including Carasso Motors, Comasco, Shlomo Group, Talcar Corporation Ltd., and Automotive Equipment (AEV) [Machshiri Tnua]. In addition, Mooly Eden, former Senior VP at Intel Corporation, will join Hailo’s board of directors, and Eyal Waldman, Co-Founder and former CEO of Mellanox Technologies, will join its advisory board.
Hailo said it has doubled its customer base to more than 100 clients over the last two fiscal quarters of 2021 as more enterprises seek AI solutions that empower sensors and smart devices at lower costs, lower energy and greater power. The company has expanded its presence globally over the last year, opening offices in Tokyo, Taipei, Munich, and Silicon Valley. In addition, Hailo recently announced a partnership with Macnica, a semiconductor distributor in Japan.
“We are honored by this milestone round for an edge AI chip company and will use these significant resources to accelerate our aggressive plan to make advanced AI edge solutions more accessible to industries across the globe,” said Orr Danon, CEO and Co-Founder of Hailo. “This tremendous support is a testament to our unparalleled edge AI product line, and we look forward to empowering even smarter and swifter devices, and thus, a more robust future powered by AI.”
“In the coming years, AI will become the defining feature for creating new business value and reshaping user experience as we know it. The ability to bring AI-based features to market will increasingly be the deciding factor over whether companies succeed or fail,” said former Intel executive Mooly Eden. “Hailo’s innovative and hyper-efficient processor architecture addresses the growing demand for a new kind of chip to handle these new types of workloads, challenging traditional computing solutions.”
