The likes of Xiaomi, China Development Bank Capital and CMB International have invested in China-headquartered chip designer Smartsens
SmartSens Technology Co Ltd (Smartsens) has raised approximately $225 million (1.5 billion yuan) from the likes of Xiaomi, China Development Bank Capital and CMB International. The former specialises in the design of CMOS sensing chips. Interestingly, the company had earlier received investment from a fund operated by Huawei.
It is also to be noted here that Xiaomi had previously developed a CMOS sensor in collaboration with Samsung Electronics. SmartSens, on the other hand, had recently acquired Shenzhen-based Allchip Microelectronics. The latter is a specialist in CMOS image sensors for automotive applications.
Xiaomi has appointed new CFO about 15 days ago
The news of Xiaomi investing in SmartSens company has broken out approximately two week’s after its new CFO was appointed. Alain Lam officially took office as the group’s vice president and chief financial officer recently, and the news was announced by the group on ninth October 2020.
Lam has over 20 years of investment banking experience and previously served as a managing director and the head of technology, media, and telecom in the investment banking and capital markets department of Credit Suisse in the Asia Pacific. Prior to joining the Xiaomi Group, he was a managing director at Morgan Stanley covering equity capital markets for technology, media, and telecom in the Asia Pacific.
SmartSens, in July 2020, had announced the appointment of James Ouyang as the newly appointed Deputy General Manager of SmartSens. He has been given charge of the corporate strategic integration at SmartSens.
“In the past, the semiconductor business in China relied heavily on overseas technology and research. With the rise of the local semiconductor development and the maturity of domestic CIS technology in recent years, however, we are seeing a seismic shift towards China and Asia,” Ouyang had said earlier.
He had added, “I’m very pleased to be part of SmartSens, a fast-growing company with a world-class research and development team, and excellent market performance. My role moving forward is to optimize industry resource integration and ecosystem partnership—both of which will provide valuable assets to SmartSens’ strategic planning and execution to better serve our customers as we elevate China’s semiconductor position globally.”
Ouyang has previously served GP Capital Company as a partner. He specialised in semiconductor company investments there.
