WeRide, a China-based autonomous driving technology provider that counts several corporates among its investors, disclosed today it has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in series C funding.
IDG Capital, Homeric Capital, CoStone Capital, Cypress Star, Sky9 Capital, K3 Ventures, CMC Capital Partners, Qiming Venture Partners and Alpview Capital supplied the capital at a valuation of $3.3bn according to a blog post by the company.
Founded in 2017, WeRide has built an autonomous vehicle software platform and has been operating a driverless taxi service in the Chinese city of Guangzhou since late 2019. It is also conducting tests for its technology on roads in the United States and its home country.
The series C proceeds will be channelled into research and development and commercialisation activities. The deal comes four months after WeRide closed a series B round led by $200m from bus manufacturer Yutong Group at $310m.
Qiming Venture Partners, MC Capital Partners, CDB Equipment Manufacturing Fund, Hengjian Emerging Industries Fund, Zhuhai Huajin Capital, Tryin Capital, Sinovation Ventures and Kinzon Capital were also series B investors.
Artificial intelligence technology provider SenseTime, motor equipment producer Johnson Electric and Alliance Ventures, the investment vehicle formed by carmakers Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, had contributed to WeRide’s series A round in early 2019.
The size of the 2019 round was not disclosed but it also featured financial services firm Agricultural Bank of China’s ABC International subsidiary, Qiming Venture Capital, Hanfor Capital, Atop Capital, Idinvest Partners, OceanIQ Capital and Xiaopeng He.
The company had raised $52m in a pre-series A round led by Qiming Venture Partners that included graphics chip manufacturer Nvidia’s investment arm, Nvidia GPU Ventures, in addition to unnamed others, in 2017 when it was still known as Jingchi.
Photo courtesy of WeRide.ai.
