A man and a woman rock Mobvoi smartwatches image: Mobvoi

Mobvoi – A Chinese AI and smartwatch startup known for its development of in-house voice search technologies – is close to securing funding at a $1 billion valuation, Bloomberg reports. It says Mobvoi is seeking to raise $100 million ahead of planed IPO on a proposed board for tech companies in Shanghai.

A $1 billion valuation would imply a new addition to the unicorn club from the Chinese region. Mobvoi has already raised nearly $250 million according to Crunchbase data, from investors including Google, Sequoia Capital China, ZhenFund and Volkswagen. Mobvoi has a noteworthy link with Google, having marked as the tech giant’s first direct investment in China after shuttering its search engine in the country in 2010.

Mobvoi CEO Zhifei Li image: Mobvoi

Mobvoi was founded in 2012 by ex-Googlers and also counts Google as a partner. Google collaborated with the company in 2015 to get Android Wear into the Chinese market. Beijing based Mobvoi develops vice search technologies that it applies in products like the Chumenwenwen in-car entertainment app and the Ticwatch, a smartwatch developed by the company.

It currently employs some 800 people in offices spread across the globe.

Share this...

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Linkedin

Whatsapp

Email

Print