Electric vehicle manufacturer Leading Ideal led a series A-plus round for China-based autonomous vehicle developer Neolix Technologies sized at almost RMB200m ($28.8m) last month, VentureBeat reported on Wednesday.
The corporate was joined in the round by venture capital firm Addor Capital and VC funds Yunqi Partners and Glory Ventures. The latter two had previously supplied $14.5m in series A funding for Neolix in May 2019.
Neolix has developed an autonomous vehicle designed to deliver goods such as food and other consumer goods on behalf of retailers. They are electric-powered and capable of travelling up to 100 kilometres on a single charge.
The system is powered by a cloud software platform that manages the dispatching of the cars while monitoring their performance and providing driving data for analysis. It has sold roughly 225 units so far but may see orders increase with the current coronavirus outbreak.
The funding has been allocated to expanding production of the vehicles, which is currently being handled through a factory in the city of Changzhou that is capable of rolling out 10,000 cars a year.
Leading Ideal, then called CHJ Automotive, had joined Oriza Yuandian Venture Capital, a subsidiary of investment holding company Oriza Holding, to provide an undisclosed amount of seed capital for Neolix in April 2018. It is now the company’s second largest shareholder.
Image courtesy of Neolix Technologies.
