US-headquartered lidar technology developer Innovusion secured $66m on Friday in a series B-plus round that included Nio Capital, the investment firm formed by electric car producer Nio.
Investment bank Guotai Junan International’s Private Equity Fund led the round, which also featured F-Prime Capital and Eight Roads Ventures – both vehicles for investment and financial services group Fidelity – as well as Shunwei Capital and Temasek.
Innovusion has developed lidar (light detection and ranging) systems to help vehicles detect surrounding objects. The technology will be used on Nio’s ET7 sedan, which is slated to begin commercial production this year.
The company had raised $64m in a May 2021 series B round featuring Nio Capital, Temasek, Eight Roads and F-Prime as well as Bertelsmann Asia Investments (BAI), a corporate VC vehicle for media group Bertelsmann, and Joy Capital.
BAI, Temasek and Joy Capital had reportedly provided $60m in funding for Innovusion three months earlier at a reported $300m valuation, though it is unclear whether that deal related to the May round. Nio Capital, Eight Roads and F-Prime co-led its $30m series A round in 2018.
Junwei Bao, Innovusion’s CEO, said: “We are very confident that we can successfully build the world’s leading high-performance lidar supply chain system, contributing to the future growth of autonomous vehicles.
“At the same time, we will continue to heavily invest in [research and development] to provide products and solutions suitable for different scenarios for future mobility. It is a great honour to have such great partners around the world who believe in us and share our vision.
“After several months of accelerated product progression, the B-plus round of financing will further turbocharge our growth plan.”
