After years of a financing frenzy, Chinese autonomous driving businesses are slowing down. Some firms still raise cash, but the days of raising hundreds of millions in one round are over.
Great Wall Motor-backed autonomous driving company Haomo.ai secured 100 million yuan, or $14 million, in a new fundraising round, it said Thursday. The Chengdu government-backed Chengdu Wufa Private Equity Fund Management led the company’s Series B funding’s first tranche.
As global venture capital companies leave China, Chinese investors, especially those with local government backing, have backed its digital startups. Startup database ITJuzi reports that four-year-old Haomo secured approximately $200 million in Chinese yuan equity capital.
Meituan and Qualcomm Ventures, Qualcomm’s corporate venture arm, invested in Haomo.
Haomo, led by Baidu smart car veteran CEO Gu Weihao, has been developing Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems for passenger automobiles, largely for its biggest shareholder, Great Wall, a Chinese SUV and pickup truck maker. Meituan, Alibaba, and JD.com use its Level 4 logistics truck self-driving technologies.
Haomo will create robots for Wuhou, a core neighborhood, with funding from Chengdu, famed for its big pandas and spicy cuisine. Together with private tech businesses, Chinese local governments seek to become national “demo zones” for cutting-edge innovations. Wuhou’s technical exhibition will include Haomo’s cleaning and security inspection robots.
Haomo claimed its ADAS solutions, which include autonomous braking and lane change, have powered over 20 car types and driven 120 million kilometers. Beijing stores have received almost 300,000 shopping shipments from its self-driving delivery vehicles.
Western VC-backed Chinese AV startups Pony.ai, WeRide, Momenta, and Deeproute compete with Haomo. All except Momenta wanted to build a robot. Since L4 driving is capital-intensive and years from general usage, they are focusing on less sophisticated but more deployable L2 or L3 technologies, like Haomo.
Haomo benefits from Great Wall engagement. Being cradled by a big vehicle OEM gives it the resources to support costly R&D without confining itself to one client. A spokesman for Haomo declined to disclose its three other OEMs that use their ADAS.
Haomo raises $14M for autonomous driving innovation with Great Wall’s backing.
