Beijing-based autonomous driving startup Haomo.AI has raised nearly 1 billion yuan ($156.9 million) in a Series A round of financing to reach a unicorn status with a valuation of over $1 billion, the startup announced on Wednesday.
Hillhouse Capital’s early-stage investment unit GL Ventures, food delivery giant Meituan, Qualcomm’s venture capital (VC) arm Qualcomm Ventures, Shoucheng Holdings Limited, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned steel firm Shougang Group, and others invested in the round.
Haomo will use the fresh capital to upgrade self-driving technology and build its talent pool, it said. The startup closed a pre-Series A round earlier this year at what it called “hundreds of millions of Chinese yuan.”
The Series A round “marks the first victory we have ever gained in our battle for survival in the protracted autonomous driving race,” said Haomo’s chairman of the board Zhang Kai in a statement. With the new financing, the startup will work with partners “to speed up the rollout of new products and services.”
Established in 2015 as the intelligent driving department of China’s Great Wall Motor before it became an independent enterprise in 2019, Haomo is driving into an increasingly competitive market where automakers, tech startups, and PE-VC investors are investing heavily to grasp a bigger market share.
Chinese autonomous driving startup Momenta pocketed over $1 billion this year through its Series C round in March and an extended round in November. US automaker General Motors made a bet of $300 million in the firm, alongside other investors including SAIC Motor, Toyota Motor, Daimler, Alibaba’s Jack Ma-backed Yunfeng Capital, and Singapore state investor Temasek.
Alibaba and automaker Geely-backed DeepRoute.ai in September announced the completion of a Series B round at over $300 million to continue its long-term strategies of developing self-driving trucks for urban logistics and popularizing robotaxis. WeRide, a China-based autonomous driving startup backed by Japan’s Nissan Motor, secured $310 million in June at a valuation of $3.3 billion.
In China, startups developing self-driving systems, lidar sensors, and other solutions are also raising big-ticket investments. Hesai Technology, which develops lidar sensors for autonomous driving vehicles, in November raised $70 million from smartphone maker Xiaomi as an extended tranche to its $300-million Series D round in June. Other major fundraisers include self-driving tech developer COWAROBOT, intelligent driving solutions provider Freetech, and CalmCar, which offers AI-based self-driving solutions and data services.
Haomo said that it expected to make its self-developed Level 2 autonomous driving system, which is partial driving automation that requires supervision by a human driver, available in 34 vehicel models by the end of 2022. The system is currently available on five Great Wall vehicle models with features such as automatic lane changing.
In addition, the startup also produces unmanned Level 4 self-driving logistics vehicles to handle tasks like groceries and e-commerce parcels deliveries to customers of its partnered platforms including Meituan, Wumart’s on-demand grocery unit Dmall, and Alibaba.