Zelos Technology, which develops unmanned logistics vehicles, has snapped $100 million in a Series A financing round led by Chinese food delivery giant Meituan, according to a release on Tuesday.
The round saw the participation of Baidu Ventures (BV), the investment arm of Chinese search engine giant Baidu, as well as China-focused venture capital firms Xianting Fund and Seekdource. Existing shareholders including Blue Lake Capital and Xiamen C&D Emerging Industry Equity Investment re-upped in the round.
The Suzhou-based firm plans to further its R&D as well as commercialisation efforts, per the release.
Founded in 2021, Zelos, which has developed a Level 4 autonomous driving technology, hopes to address the challenges in the trillion-dollar business-to-business (B2B) urban logistics market.
Level 4 is considered a fully driverless vehicle that can drive by itself without interaction with human drivers.
Previously, the firm notched $30 million from state-owned Southern Taihu Lake New District—a tech hub dedicated to the new energy vehicle industry in the city of Huzhou.
Zelos has offices in Beijing, Singapore and Silicon Valley.
In a similar deal in the sector, Beijing-based autonomous driving startup Haomo.AI secured 100 million yuan ($14 million) in a Series B1 round from state-owned investor Chengdu Wufa Fund on February 22. The Great Wall Motor-backed self-driving firm engages in the production of self-driving delivery vehicles and other intelligent driving solutions and hardware.
The mass commercialisation of self-driving vehicles is predicted to happen by 2030 across major cities in China, according to a report by audit firm KPMG. While the report expected that self-driving vehicles will be ubiquitous across ride-hailing or delivery services by 2030, it added that regulation and tech barriers could still serve as roadblocks going forward.