China’s Eswin startup raises $283 million
The round was led by Legend Capital, the investment arm of Lenovo Capital, and IDG Capital. Riverhead Capital Investment Management, Lighthouse Capital and state-backed Haining City and Zhejiang Province participated in the round.
IDG led a Series A round, of undisclosed size, that closed in January 2019.
Eswin’s founder and CEO is Wang Dongsheng, who was previously chairman of BOE Technology Group, a Chinese producer of displays for smartphones and TVs.
The company was founded in 2016 and began construction of production facilities in Xi’an, Shaanxi province in 2017. The company makes monocrystalline silicon polished wafers and epitaxial wafers for ICs and performs IC packaging and testing of materials and finished chips with bases in Suzhou, Hefei and Chengdu.
The company’s manufacturing capacity in Xi’an was expected to reach mass production in mid-2020 and is estimated to generate 4.5 billion yuan (US$635 million) annually.
The company also operates as a fabless chip company developing display driver ICs. It retains a strong relationship with BOE, which is reportedly responsible for 37 percent of Eswin’s chip business revenue.
The company was also in the news recently for the hiring and subsequent resignation of a former Samsing executive.
Earlier this month it was reported that Jang Won-gi, a former senior executive at Samsung Electronics who once ran the company’s China operations had been recruited by Eswin early in 2020 as vice chairman.Jang had also worked as an advisor for Samsung Electronics for two years after his retirement in 2017.
Chang reportedly said that he had joined Eswin out of friendship with CEO Wang and that he could not be a technology-leak because he has no current knowledge of the technology to give away. A subsequent report said Chang had now resigned because he didn’t want to unintentionally hurt Samsung or his successors.
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