The round, which was led by existing investors, was also joined by key strategic investors including ABB Technology Ventures (ATV) – the strategic VC arm of ABB; NEC and London-based VC firm Latitude Ventures. The funding will be used to bolster the company's ongoing global rollout of its Hailo-8 Deep Learning chip and to reach new markets and industries worldwide.
“We are very impressed with Hailo’s product and team and believe their novel deep learning processor will help advance different Industry 4.0 applications,” said Kurt Kaltenegger, Head of ABB Technology Ventures. “We look forward to combining Hailo’s solution with our cutting-edge industrial technology as an important piece of the puzzle to drive the digital transformation of industries.”
“Hailo’s technology is a leading-edge solution for high-performance, low power, and cost-effective processing at the edge,” said Hiroto Sugahara, General Manager of Corporate Technology Division, NEC. “Its technology will help us dive even deeper into the intelligent video analytics market.”
The Series B round brings Hailo’s total funding to $88 million and comes after the launch of Hailo-8, its Deep Learning processor for edge devices. With a totally reimagined chip architecture that relies on the core properties of neural networks, the chip empowers devices to perform sophisticated Deep Learning applications that could previously run only on the cloud. The Hailo-8's Structure-Defined Dataflow Architecture has been designed to provide higher performance, lower power, and minimal latency, enabling more privacy and better performance for smart devices operating at the edge, including partially autonomous vehicles, smart cameras, smartphones, drones and AR/VR platforms.
The Hailo-8 features up to 26 tera operations per second (TOPS) and significantly outperforms all other edge processors with its small size, high performance, and low power consumption.
“Hailo’s Deep Learning chip is a real gamechanger in industries such as automotive, industry 4.0, robotics, smart cities, and many more,” said Hailo Chairman Zohar Zisapel. “A new age of AI chips means a new age of computing capabilities at the edge, and we are excited to lead this transformation.”
“This immense vote of confidence from our new strategic and financial investors, along with existing ones, is a testimony to our breakthrough innovation and market potential,” said Orr Danon, CEO and Co-Founder of Hailo. “The new funding will help us expedite the deployment of new levels of edge computing capabilities in smart devices and intelligent industries around the world, including areas such as mobility, smart cities, industrial automation, smart retail and beyond.”
