Unisoc, a chip maker from China, is seeking an injection of 10 billion yuan .
Through this funding, Unisoc's valuation will reach 70 billion yuan. The additional funds will later be used to prepare Unisoc to face pressure from the United States, we were quoted as saying by Reuters, Wednesday (15/2/2023).
This news was leaked by three people who claimed to know about this matter. One of the sources also said that Unisoc is targeting to get a list of potential investors by mid-March 2023, and will close the funding at the end of June.
Unisoc first announced the funding last week via its Weibo account, and board secretary Jia Shaoxu said the funds would be used to improve technology and make its products more competitive. However, in the announcement they did not mention how much the injection of funds needed.
Unisoc's move was taken after the Chinese government revealed its plans to boost domestic chip production. In addition, President Xi Jinping also invited its citizens to become a country that can meet its own technological needs.
The Chinese government was forced to take this step because the US government continued to put pressure on China by restricting exports, including the latest military technology. Worse, the US also banned the sale of technology and equipment to make chips to China.
Unisoc is a company owned by Wise Road Capital, the equity firm that took over Unisoc from Tsinghua Univroup after it went bankrupt.
Compared to Qualcomm and Samsung, Unisoc's market share is indeed the smallest, which is around 10% in 2022. Plus, not too many cellphones use Unisoc SoCs and most of these SoCs are used in entry-level HP classes.