China’s SemiDrive Technology has raised nearly 1 billion yuan ($138.9 million) in a Series B+ round of financing led by an SAIC Motor-backed investment fund to speed up the mass production and application of its automotive chips.
SemiDrive, which counts Sequoia Capital China and Temasek-backed Vertex Ventures China among its early investors, secured fresh capital from both new and existing investors. Asia-focused investment bank CVCapital, which served as the financial adviser to the deal, announced it in a WeChat post on Monday.
Wuxi SAIC Jinshi Innovation Industry Fund, a fund with 6 billion yuan ($833.4 million) in its first closing in 2021, led the deal, according to the post. The vehicle was backed by Chinese state-owned carmaker SAIC Motor, CITIC Securities Investment, and a regional government-backed investment firm in eastern China’s Wuxi City.
China’s government-guided Guozhong Capital and domestic insurer Huatai Insurance Group were among some of the new investors of the Series B+ round, while existing shareholders Shanghai STVC Group, Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park Development, V Fund, and Vinno Capital re-upped.
Nanjing-headquartered SemiDrive plans to use the net proceeds to focus on the R&D of automotive chips, build fundamental automotive technologies, and promote the adoption of intelligent connected vehicles, according to the post.
“SAIC Motor will deepen its partnership with SemiDrive in producing intelligent vehicles, after the official launch of the first SemiDrive-enabled SAIC vehicle model this July,” said Feng Ji, managing partner, Shang Qi Capital, an investment platform of SAIC Motor.
Founded in 2018, the startup has four validated and mass-produced automotive chips including smart cockpit chip X9, intelligent driving chip V9, central gateway chip G9, and high-performance microcontroller unit E3. It claims to have served over 260 clients at home and abroad, including over 90% of carmakers in domestic China, its official website shows.
The startup operates R&D centres in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, and Shenzhen, as well as branch offices in Changchun and Wuhan.
The new financing came more than one year after the completion of its previous round. In the Series B round, the startup also secured almost 1 billion yuan from lead investors including V Fund and the 20-billion-yuan ($2.8 billion) Guokai Equipment Manufacturing Industrial Investment Fund in China.
Prior to that, SemiDrive raised 500 million yuan ($69.5 million) in a Series A round led by semiconductor-focused investment firm CTC Capital. Sequoia Capital China, Vertex Ventures China, Matrix Partners China, and Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group backed the firm’s earliest funding rounds in 2018 and 2019.