April 2 (Reuters) - Israel-based chipmaker Hailo has

raised $120 million in a new funding round, valuing it at $1.2

billion, and released a high-performance generative AI chip, the

company said on Tuesday.

The fundraising was led by existing and new investors

including the Zisapel family, construction tools provider

Comasco and online venture investing platform OurCrowd, among

others. The latest round takes the total investment to more than

$340 million since Hailo's inception in 2017.

"We are hoping to use the new funds to accelerate our growth

and execute faster on our roadmap. Based on this and given the

right market conditions, our aim is to become a publicly traded

company," Hailo CEO and Co-Founder Orr Danon told Reuters,

without providing any details on the timeline.

Investors are increasingly backing AI startups since the

launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT, betting on potential benefits from

the growing adoption of the technology that could challenge

industry leaders and expedite innovation.

Hailo, which has more than 300 customers globally including

Schneider Electric, Dell Technologies ( DELL ) and ABB

, offers products such as AI accelerators and AI

software suite.

The chipmaker said it has launched the Hailo-10

high-performance generative AI accelerator, which would help

users to run GenAI applications locally without registering on

cloud-based GenAI services, and would begin shipping samples of

it in the second quarter of this year.

"Whether users employ GenAI to automate real-time

translation ... generate software code, or images and videos

from text prompts, Hailo-10 lets them do it directly on their

PCs or other edge systems, without straining the CPU," Danon

said in a statement.

The early applications of the Hailo-10 will target personal

computers and automotive infotainment systems, boosting the

processing capabilities of central processing units (CPUs),

Hailo said.