Beijing-based AI start-up ModelBest has concluded a C+ Series funding round, for a total of 5 billion yuan ($740m, £550m) raised so far this year, investors said, amid growing interest in tech that can run powerful AI tasks on devices such as smartphones and laptops.
ModelBest, a prominent player in on-device AI, completed the round last week, investor Shanghai Mejoy Capital said in a social media post.
Shanghai Mejoy said the round valued ModelBest at 20bn yuan, without disclosing the size of the latest funding round.
Evolving strategy
Currently some AI features run locally on devices such as phone handsets, but more compute-intensive tasks rely on routing chores through remote facilities, adding latency and costs and raising privacy questions.
