China CIS startup gets investments from Big Fund, Xiaomi, Huawei

China-based CMOS image sensor (CIS) developer SmartSens Technology has just raised CNY1.5 billion (US$225 million) in a funding round led by the country's second-phase National IC Industry Investment Fund (Big Fund), Xiaomi Changing Industrial Fund, and China Merchants Bank's CMB International, according to industry sources.

The financing round also attracted many new investors, including China Internet Fund, Sequoia Capital Fund, communications EMS WingTech Technology, and smart handset vendor Transsion Holdings, all eyeing huge market potentials for CIS solutions for AIoT, surveillance and automotive applications, the sources said.

In early August 2020, Huawei's subsidiary Hubble Technology Investment also injected funds into SmartSens seeking to build a presence in the CIS sector.

Unlike OmniVision dedicated to handset CIS solutions, SmartSens has focused more on video surveillance applications since its incpetion in 2011, with its products widely used in security monitoring, vehicle-mounted imaging, machine vision, and consumer electronics including sports cameras, drones, robot cleaners and smart home cameras.

Techno Systems Research statistics show that SmartSens ranked first in the world by shipments of video surveillance solutions in 2017 and 2018.

In an effort to tap deeper into automotive applications, SmartSens completed in June 2020 its acquisition of Shenzhen-based Allchip Microelectronics, a specialist in automotive CIS technology.

In September, the company rolled out two advanced automotive CIS chipsets, SC100AT and SC410GS, designed to enable the next generation of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), the sources said.