Asia Tech Wire (Oct 22) -- Kneron Inc., the U.S. AI chip startup backed by iPhone assembler Foxconn, seeks to raise $300 million in its latest funding round, according to Bloomberg.

Once successful, this would value the edge AI solutions vendor at around $1 billion.

Tuesday's report said Kneron wants to use the funds for product innovation as well as expansion, including opening a regional office in Saudi Arabia.

The chip startup eventually intends to set up a research and development lab in Saudi Arabia, a person familiar with the matter said.

The funding round is expected to be Kneron's last before it tentatively goes public in 2025, the report noted.

A document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday shows that Kneron has signed a letter of intent to go public on the Nasdaq through a merger with Spark I Acquisition Corp., a blank check company.

Former Qualcomm engineer Albert Liu founded Kneron in 2015, with headquarters in San Diego and Taipei.

Kneron produces AI SoC processors that offer the ideal balance of performance, power saving, and cost for hardware makers that are looking to benefit from on-device edge AI.

Last September, Kneron announced that it had closed its Series B funding round, raising a total of $97 million.

It's unclear how much Kneron has raised so far, but the company disclosed in a press release in April that its funding totaled more than $190 million.

Kneron has secured backing from a number of investors, including Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing's Horizons Ventures, Qualcomm, Sequoia Capital and Foxconn.