Lingchuan Technology raises $138M Series B for AI video chips
A Beijing chip designer closed a RMB 1 billion Series B, roughly $138 million at current exchange rates. Yitang Shenghe Fund, tied to Yizhuang State Investment, Qiming Venture Partners and Zhaohui Capital led the round. Guotai Haitong Kaiyuan, Huakong Investment, a China Life-affiliated fund and several industrial investors also joined, while earlier shareholders including Shunxi Fund, Shuimu Investment Group and Jiuzhi Capital added capital. No valuation was reported.
The company was set up by Beijing Artificial Intelligence Fund and Kuaishou and split off from Kuaishou's heterogeneous computing and chip unit in March 2024. Its SL200 video chip targets live streaming and on-demand video, and nearly 100,000 units have been sold. According to EEWorld, the chip covers 99.7% of Kuaishou's live-streaming transcoding work and has reached Southeast Asia and South America through Kuaishou's overseas business.
The next product is a 3D-stacked chip for AI video generation. 36Kr's Hard Krypton reported that it completed tape-out in April, that the returned silicon arrived recently, and that large-scale shipments are expected next year. The new money will fund next-generation chip research, mass production and overseas expansion.
Why it matters
For founders building video or multimodal products, the round shows domestic capital willing to back custom silicon rather than relying only on general-purpose GPUs. Investors now ask for proof of deployment at large platforms, and Lingchuan can point to Kuaishou, Alibaba Cloud, Baidu Cloud and Bilibili. Companies selling to Chinese buyers should watch which chip stacks win those anchor customers, since hardware availability may shape which models a buyer can run cheaply.
For investors, the deal shows capital flowing into hardware built around one workload. No valuation was disclosed, and the next-generation chip has not yet reached volume, so returns depend on execution during that gap. For AI operators, the key claim is cost: the company says dedicated video chips can sharply cut the cost and time of video generation, but these are its own figures and have not been independently verified.
Key points
- 1Lingchuan Technology completed a RMB 1 billion Series B led by Yitang Shenghe Fund, Qiming Venture Partners and Zhaohui Capital.
- 2The company was founded by Beijing Artificial Intelligence Fund and Kuaishou and separated from Kuaishou's chip unit in March 2024.
- 3Nearly 100,000 SL200 video chips have been sold to Kuaishou, Alibaba Cloud, Baidu Cloud and Bilibili.
- 4The 3D-stacked next-generation chip completed tape-out in April and is expected to ship at scale next year.
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