Hailo raises $136mn to address surge in demand

The AI (Artificial Intelligence) chipmaker Hailo has revealed that it has raised $136mn in a Series C funding round led by Poalim Equity and Gil Agmon.

The round brings Hailo’s total funding to $224mn which the company said would be used to address growing interest in the Hailo-8 AI Processor for Edge Devices, and allow the company to further develop its next-generation products and expand into both new and existing global markets.

“We 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 support is a testament to our edge AI product line, and we look forward to empowering even smarter and swifter devices, and thus, a more robust future powered by AI.”

With a reimagined 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 centre computers, and is seen as paving the way for smarter edge products.

Hailo has been consistently expanding its product line, recently launching both its M.2 and Mini PCIe high-performance AI acceleration modules for empowering edge devices.

“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 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.”

The round was joined by existing investors, including prominent 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, and Automotive Equipment (AEV).