(Yicai) June 4 -- Unisoc Technologies closed a new round of equity financing worth over CNY4 billion (USD552 million), as the Chinese communication chip designer has gotten one step closer to an initial public offering.

The fundraiser includes funds from state-owned capital firms from Beijing and Shanghai and large financial institutions, such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of Communications, and People’s Insurance Company of China, Yicai learned from Unisoc.

Founded in 2013 in Shanghai, Unisoc is the Chinese mainland’s largest mobile chip manufacturer. Before this financing round, the company was valued at CNY60 billion (USD8.3 billion), having completed four fundraisers, the latest of which was in April 2021 when the company raised CNY5.4 billion from four institutions, including Shanghai Guosheng Group.

Unisoc shipped 26 million chips in the first quarter of the year, up 64 percent from a year earlier, according to data from market research firm Canalys. The firm achieved a global market share of 9 percent, ranking fourth after MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Apple.

Unisoc’s parent company Tsinghua Unigroup entered bankruptcy reorganization in 2021 after defaulting on debts. This led to changes in the management team of Unisoc, as Tsinghua Unigroup’s Executive Vice President Ma Daojie was named the company’s new chairman in June last year.

Ma’s experience in the semiconductor industry and IPO financing will assist Unisoc in its future public listing process, sources familiar with the matter told Yicai at the time.

Ma is also the chairman of Unigroup Guoxin Microelectronics, a core listed company under Tsinghua Unigroup.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione