Chinese automotive chipmaker SemiDrive secures fresh funding

Lei Kang

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Sept 21, 2026 at 11:49 AM GMT+8

SemiDrive's cumulative automotive chip shipments have exceeded 14 million units, with its products reaching more than 90% of Chinese automakers.

The company completed a Series C funding round of nearly $100 million in May.

Chinese automotive chipmaker SemiDrive said on Monday that it had completed Series C+ and C++ funding rounds, bringing its total Series C financing in 2026 to about 1 billion yuan ($148 million).

Investors included Walden International, Shaanxi Investment Fund, Shaanxi Financial Asset Management and Shaanxi New Era Capital, alongside other financial and strategic investors, SemiDrive said in a statement.

The proceeds will primarily fund research and development of core technologies and their commercialization. SemiDrive plans to strengthen its technological edge in smart cockpit and vehicle control chips while extending its automotive-grade capabilities to applications such as embodied AI and other smart devices.

This is SemiDrive's second funding announcement this year. In May, the company completed a Series C round of nearly $100 million.

SemiDrive is among a small number of chip designers globally that offer both automotive-grade system-on-chips (SoCs) and high-performance microcontroller units (MCUs).

Its lineup includes the X9 smart cockpit chip, V9 smart driving chip, G9 central gateway chip and E3 high-performance MCU.

Cumulative shipments across its automotive chip lineup have exceeded 14 million units, up from 12 million in May.

Its products reach more than 90% of Chinese automakers and some international manufacturers. Customers include SAIC Motor (SSE: 600104), Chery (HKEX: 9973), Changan Automobile (SZSE: 000625), Dongfeng, FAW, Nissan, Honda, Volkswagen and Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI).

In embodied AI, SemiDrive offers a full-stack chip solution spanning the entire "brain, cerebellum, torso and joints" architecture, it said. Its chips are already used in mass-produced products from leading embodied AI companies.

Walden said SemiDrive ranks first among domestic suppliers by market share in both smart cockpit chips and vehicle control MCUs. Its expansion from automotive chips into embodied AI opens up further growth opportunities, the investor said.

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Nanjing, SemiDrive previously raised 1 billion yuan in a Series B round in July 2021 and about another 1 billion yuan in a Series B+ round in November 2022.

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($1 = 6.7487 yuan)

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About Author

Lei Kang joined CnEVPost in October 2022 and has been covering China’s EV industry ever since. He majored in civil engineering in college but has a strong interest in automobiles and electronics. Contact the team: [email protected].