Physix Frontier
SenseTime
Funding History
- Post-IPOUndisclosed — Placed 1.7 billion shares @ HK$1.91, an approx. 8.6% discount to the April 16 closing price of HK$2.09. Use of proceeds: 40% to expand SenseCore AI infrastructure (scaling domestic chip supercomputing clusters), 30% for generative AI R&D (SenseNova series), 20% for AI vertical exploration, and 10% for general working capital. All funds expected to be used by end of 2026.
- Post-IPO PlacementUndisclosed — Expected to be fully utilized by the end of 2026.
- IPOUndisclosed — Issue Price: HK$3.85; Market Cap at Listing: Approx. HK$137.5B on first day of trading; Shares Issued: Approx. 1.5 billion shares; Lock-up Period: 6-month lock-up for cornerstone investors | Source: Prospectus/Exchange disclosures
- Sanctions EventUndisclosed — Amount: N/A; Post-money valuation: N/A; Led by US Department of Commerce | First sanction round, extremely targeted. Hikvision, Megvii, and iFLYTEK were also listed in the same batch. At the time, nearly half of SenseTime's revenue came from hardware business (selling AI servers and edge devices containing US chips). Once the Entity List was published, the hardware business almost instantly dropped to zero. SenseTime chose a hard pivot: shifting from "integrated software-hardware" to "pure software solutions," voluntarily giving up nearly half its revenue source, redesigning product systems, and retraining sales teams. This was an extremely painful but correct decision—subsequent facts proved that without this pivot, SenseTime would not have survived 2022. | Source: US Department of Commerce announcement + public reports
- Series D RoundUSD 1B — Amount: USD 1B; $1,000,000,000; Post-money valuation: over USD 6B; Led by SoftBank Vision Fund | SoftBank poured in USD 1B, pushing the valuation past USD 6B. By 2019, SenseTime was already the highest-valued AI startup globally, with over 150 PhDs—an unprecedented density of scientists among startups. However, SoftBank subsequently joined the ranks of those reducing holdings. | Source: Compilation of public reports
- Series C++ RoundUSD 620M — Amount: USD 620M ($620,000,000); Led by: Undisclosed | Just one month after Series C, with a lineup spanning top PE and hedge funds in China and the US. This was SenseTime's most intensive financing period. | Source: Compiled from public reports
- Series C RoundUSD 600M — Amount: USD 600M; USD 600,000,000; Post-money valuation: USD 4.5B; Led by: Alibaba | Alibaba led the round, becoming one of the most important strategic shareholders thereafter. However, starting Nov 2022, Alibaba began reducing holdings, fully exiting all Class B shares by July 2023. | Source: Compiled from public reports
- Strategic InvestmentUndisclosed — Amount: Not disclosed; Led by Qualcomm. Qualcomm's strategic investment carries significance for chip ecosystem synergy. Notably, Qualcomm maintained cooperation even after SenseTime was placed on the Entity List in 2019. | Source: Compiled Public Reports
- Series B++ RoundUSD 410M — Amount: USD 410M; Post-money valuation: over USD 1.5B; Led by Sail Capital. At the time, this was the largest single-round funding in the global AI sector, propelling SenseTime to become the 'world's most valuable AI startup.' Source: Compiled from public reports.
- Series B RoundUSD 120M — Amount: USD 120M; USD 120,000,000; Led by Undisclosed lead investor | Wanda Group's entry brought offline commercial scenario resources, supporting SenseTime's early "AI + physical commerce" narrative. | Source: Public report compilation
- Angel and Series A RoundsUndisclosed — Amount basis: Tens of millions of USD; Led by: IDG Capital | IDG Capital partner Niu Kuiguang later said: 'This is the only project IDG invested in without looking at the product'—they invested in the people, Tang Xiaou and the academic accumulation of MMLab at CUHK. In March 2014, the GaussianFace algorithm released by MMLab achieved 98.52% accuracy on the LFW database, surpassing human eyes (97.53%) for the first time and defeating Facebook's DeepFace (97.35%). | Source: Compiled public reports