Hong Kong-based autonomous vehicle developer AutoX has closed a $100m series A round led by carmaker Dongfeng Motor that included an unspecified investment vehicle for internet group Alibaba, KrAsia reported yesterday.
Government-founded technology commercialisation organisation Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation also took part in the round, as did Plug and Play China, an investment fund linked to incubator Plug and Play.
Founded in 2016, AutoX is working on self-driving vehicles for driverless fleets that will initially handle consumer goods deliveries.
The company claims the vehicles will navigate roads at level 4 proficiency: an industry term for self-driving cars that operate without human assistance within set metropolitan parameters.
AutoX will employ the fresh capital to produce vehicles for its fleets and hire additional technicians as it prepares to enter markets in Southeast Asia.
The company also hopes to leverage Alibaba’s involvement to enter the logistics space and plans to pilot 100 self-driving taxis in the Chinese city of Shanghai in early 2020, despite reports previously indicating it was uninterested in autonomous passenger transport.
Dongfeng Motor led a series A3 round for AutoX sized in the eight-digit dollar range, according to 36kr, which reported the news in April 2019 despite the round closing months earlier. Semiconductor maker MediaTek and private equity firm Capital Today had both supplied an undisclosed of series A funding in 2017.
AutoX also counts automotive maker SAIC Motor and private investors Zhong Shoucheng and Xu Xiaopeng among its backers, though the precise timing of their investments is unclear. It had raised $43m of capital altogether as of August 2018, according to TechCrunch.