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Mobvoi
Mobvoi is a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company based in Beijing, China. The company independently developed its technologies in Chinese language speech recognition, natural language processing and vertical mobile search. The company's core products include Ticwatch, the first fully Chinese smartwatch, Ticwear, a smartwatch operating system and Chumenwenwen, a Chinese voice search app.

Mobvoi was founded by Zhifei Li in 2012. Zhifei Li is a former research scientist at Google X research lab. With over 70% of employees in product and engineer team, Mobvoi’s mission is to define next generation of human-machine interaction via consumer products by leveraging its artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

Ticwatch
Mobvoi's Ticwatch is a fully Chinese smartwatch which runs the company's own operating system, dubbed Ticwear and designed by Frog.

This smartwatch has a 1.5-inch touchscreen with 320X320 pixels and Corning Gorilla Glass 3, a 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A7 processor, 512 MB RAM and 4 GB internal storage. It features both WiFi and Bluetooth LE connectivity, a heart rate monitor, 300 mAh battery and wireless charging. Ticwatch is IP67-certified for protection from the elements and has a simple, yet attractive design.

Ticwear
Ticwear is a first Chinese smartwatch operating system, which was developed in-house and customized based on Android 5.1. Its core is Mobvoi’s AI technologies – speech recognition, NLP and voice search. The Ticwear ROM has gained popularity in China as an alternative to Android Wear.

Chumenwenwen App
Chumenwenwen (出门问问) is an information enquiry voice application and it simultaneously owns a Wechat public account and an app. Chumenwenwen means “go out and ask” in Chinese which indicates its two salient features: mobile and voice search. This service allows users to perform a range of tasks — including search, checking weather, searching restaurant, and more — just using their voice. Mobvoi optimised the voice search result by connecting to near 100 local service providers including Ctrip and Qunar for travel & servies, Dianping (Chinese Yelp) for restaurants. Chumenwenwen now has more than 2,000,000 users, and the figure keeps rapidly growing.

Founding
Zhifei Li, Mobvoi’s founder and chief executive, received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University and worked at Google as a researcher at Google X Lab’s desktop translation team. In October 2012, Zhifei Li raised first round of VC financing from Sequoia and ZhenFund. In March 2013, Zhifei Li left Google and founded Mobvoi back in China.

Released Chumenwenwen Voice Search App
In 2013, Mobvoi released Chumenwenwen voice search Android app. Before launching an iOS version, Mobvoi also released a Google glass version. While Google Glass’s ecosystem is still at its early stage, Chumenwenwen can provide local information like GPS, restaurant, song searching, and most importantly, they are all in Chinese.

Launched the First Chinese Smartwatch OS Ticwear
In December 2014, Mobvoi launched the first Chinese Smartwatch OS Ticwear, which was developed and customised based on Android 5.1. Its core is Mobvoi’s AI technologies – speech recognition, NLP and voice search. Ticwear became the choice of Chinese smart watch users and accumulated over 100,000 users.

Launched Ticwatch
In June 2015, Mobvoi launched Ticwatch followed by crowdfunding on JD.com, which immediately raised RMB 8M within 15 days. Ticwatch is the first fully Chinese smartwatch, with software/hardware integration and core AI technologies. It is made for Chinese users with a goal to optimise user experience.

Strategic Partnership with Android Wear
In September 2015, Mobvoi formed strategic partnership with Google to provide voice search service in China for Android Wear, the Google operating system for wearable devices. The voice and search experience has largely been missing out due the tension between Chinese government and Google. Because of this partnership, Android Wear users in China now can enjoy voice search service provided by Mobvoi and Mobvoi's partners of local data providers such as Sogou Map, Dianping, Ctrip, etc.

Received Investment from Google
In October 2015, Google took a minority stake in Mobvoi. By October 2015, having the advance AI technology and strong innovation capability, Mobvoi closed serious C round led by Google. Thus far, the Company has raised over US$ 75 million since founding and is valued at US$ 300 million. Existing investors include Sequoia, ZhenFund, SIG, Perfect Optronics, and GoerTek. Google is a minority investor in the Company, while the company still keeps controlling stake.

Team
Led by former Google scientist and AI expert, Mobvoi has a strong R&D team whose team members include engineers and researchers from top universities like Johns Hopkins, Harvard, MIT, Cambridge and Tsinghua or best Internet companies like Yahoo Beijing, Baidu, Tencent, etc. Currently Mobvoi employs over 160 people.

Leadership
Zhifei Li, PhD from Johns Hopkins University, former research scientist at Google

Yuanyuan Li, Master from University of Maryland College Park, experience at MicroStrategy Inc.

Xin (Mike) Lei, PhD from University of Washington, former research scientist at Google

Future
Mobvoi plans to enable a new generation of wearable experiences and explore consumer-oriented products for the in-vehicle environment. The Series C financing will also provide capital for exploring robotics technologies as well as other AI fields related to the Company’s long-term growth. Aside from Mobvoi’s current business, Mobvoi plans to develop further in three areas: wearable technologies, in-car environment and robotics.