Kai-Fu Lee’s Sinovation bets on Linux tablet maker Jingling in $10M round – TechCrunch

Sinovation Ventures from Kai-Fu Lee has its eye on a niche market targeting software developers. In April, the venture capital fund held a $ 10 million angel round Ring, a Chinese startup developing Linux-based tablets and laptops, learned about TechCrunch. Other investors in the round were the private equity firm Trustbridge Partners.

Jingling was only founded in June 2020, but has quickly put together a team of 80 employees who come from Aliyun OS, Alibaba’s Linux distribution, Thunder Software, a Chinese provider of operating system solutions, and China’s open source community.

The majority of the startup’s employees work on its Linux-based operating system called JingOS in Beijing, the rest develop hardware in Shenzhen, where its supply chain is located.

“Operating systems are an extremely worthwhile investment,” Peter Fang, partner at Sinovation Ventures, told TechCrunch. “We’ve seen the best iteration of product for work and entertainment from the combination of iPad Pro and Magical Keyboard, but no tablet manufacturer has delivered a superior user experience for the Android system, so we chose JingOS.”

“The investment is also in line with Sinovation’s recognition and prediction that ARM will drive more mobile and desktop devices in the future,” added the investor.

Jingling’s first device, the JingPad A1 tablet based on the ARM architecture, has already delivered over 500 units in advance sales and is increasing interest with a Crowdfunding campaign. Jingling is currently using processors from Tsinghua Unigroup, but is reviewing Qualcomm and MediaTek chipsets for future production, according to Liu.

On the software side, that’s JingOS, that is Open source on GitHub, has garnered over 50,000 downloads from users around the world, most of which are in the United States and Europe.

But how many people want a Linux tablet or laptop? Liu Chengcheng, who co-founded Jingling with Zhu Rui, said demand from the developer community was big enough to support the startup’s early growth. Liu is known for founding China’s leading startup news site 36Kr, and Zhu is an operating system expert and a veteran of Motorola and Lenovo.

Aligning with the Linux community is the first step for Jingling because “It’s difficult to gain a foothold by being in the [general] Consumer market, ”said Liu.

“The Linux market is too small for technology giants, but too heavy for small start-ups. Aside from Jingling, Huawei is the only other company in China building a mobile operating system, but HarmonyOS is more focused on IoTs. “

Linux laptops have been around for years, but Jingling wanted to offer something different by offering both desktop and mobile experiences on one device. That’s why Jingling has made JingOS compatible with Linux desktop software such as WPS Office and Terminal as well as with the usual Android apps on smartphones. The JingPad A1 tablet comes with a detachable keyboard that instantly transforms into a laptop, similar to Apple’s Magic Keyboard for iPad.

“It’s like a gift to programmers who can use it to program in the Linux system, but can also use Android mobile apps on the go,” said Liu.

Jingling aims to expand its user base and hit the Chromebook market in about two years, Liu said. The success of Chromebooks, which accounted for 10.8% of the PC market in 2020 and are increasingly eating away at Microsoft’s dominance, was an indication of the declining demand for Windows personal computers, the founder noted.

The JingPad A1 retails at a starting price of $ 549, compared to Chrome’s wide price range of between $ 200 and $ 550, depending on specifications and hardware vendors.