China-based autonomous driving technology developer QCraft has secured an undisclosed amount of additional funding from digital media group ByteDance, Bloomberg reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the matter.
ByteDance is investing as part of a funding round sized at a minimum of $25m. It will follow a $24m seed round in April 2020 led by IDG Capital and backed by Vision+ Capital and Tide Capital.
Founded in 2019, QCraft has developed autonomous driving technology for use in operating minibuses.
In July 2020 the company revealed the first bus controlled by its self-driving technology, the Longzhou One, and it launched a 5G-enabled bus project in Suzhou and a monthly membership bus project in Shenzhen later that year.
The company is aiming to build a self-driving system that can handle the most challenging driving situations in complex urban environments, according to its website. Lenovo Capital, a corporate venturing unit for electronics producer Lenovo, is among its existing investors.