Blaize, an edge AI chips manufacturer, raised USD 71 million in a Series D funding round co-led by Franklin Templeton and Temasek, with participation from DENSO and others. This round brings the total funds raised to USD 158 million.

The funds will be used for product development and go-to-market efforts, primarily in the automotive, smart retail, smart city, and industrial markets.

Blaize (formerly known as ThinCI) offers artificial intelligence (AI) computing software and hardware products to facilitate the migration of AI computing out of data centers to the edge. Founded in 2010 and out of stealth in November 2019, Blaize initially focused on chips to accelerate vision and radar. Subsequently, its focus expanded to data centers, edge infrastructure devices, and enterprise client devices. 

Analyst Quicktake: This funding comes on the heels of Blaize partnering with Taiwan-based Weikeng Industrial Co. Ltd. to expand its sales footprint in China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. Moreover, Blaize is the third edge processing chip manufacturer to raise funds in the past three months, following Mythic’s (USD 70 million) and SiMa.ai‘s (USD 80 million) funding rounds in May.