But when we look to the United States on the other side of the ocean, Cruise, a self-driving startup? Automation has taken off since it was taken over by General Motors. With the cooperation of GM, it has successively obtained huge investments from Softbank, Honda and Puxin Fund. From the valuation point of view, it has become the second largest self-driving car company after Waymo. Argo, another head company? After being invested by Ford, AI won the favor of the public, with an investment of 2.6 billion US dollars, including a cash investment of 654.38 billion US dollars, an autonomous driving technology company owned by Volkswagen? Smart? Driving (assistance) will also be incorporated into Argo? Ai. In addition, Nuro, Zoox and Aurora also received huge financing of hundreds of millions of dollars.
China autopilot, which has been suppressed for a long time, urgently needs to create some surprises in the new year to boost confidence. In this critical period, Ma Xiao Zhixing and Shi Yu Science and Technology successively announced that they had won a new round of investment including Toyota and Bosch, which not only gave the industry a shot in the arm, but also pushed the valuation of China autonomous driving startup to a new level.
New financing record
February 26th Pony.ai? A new round of financing information was officially announced, with a total financing amount of 462 million US dollars (over 3 billion RMB), including 400 million US dollars from Toyota Motor Corporation. This cooperation is an extension of the business cooperation relationship established between Toyota and Ma Xiao Star on 20 19. On this basis, the two companies will further accelerate the research and development and commercial application of autonomous driving.
After the completion of this financing, Ma Xiao Star not only broke the domestic record of financing amount in the field of autonomous driving, but also became the first autonomous driving startup company with a valuation of more than $3 billion, and it is also a head player in the world. According to official public information, Ma Xiao Zhixing raised US$ 65,438+0.02 and US$ 65,438+0.65,438+0.2 billion respectively in June and April of 2065,438+08; In April of 20 19, another $300 million was raised. At that time, the company was valued at1700 million. Thus, Ma Xiao Star can not only continue to gain the favor of capital, increase the amount of single financing, but also do a very good job in controlling the financing rhythm.
Toyota has long expressed its ambition to enter the autonomous driving market in China, and has also made contact with the head autonomous driving company in China. As early as 2065438+August 26th, 2009, Ma Xiao Zhixing officially announced the establishment of cooperation with Toyota. The two sides will explore the further landing of autonomous driving and join hands in the field of autonomous driving technology and future travel, but it is not known whether Toyota has invested capital. Looking back now, the cooperation at that time was more like Toyota's visit to Ma Xiao Zhixing, which also paved the way for this investment in advance.
From June, 2065438 to June, 2008, Ma Xiao Zhixing obtained the driving test license for self-driving vehicles issued by the Beijing Municipal Government, and the T3 license obtained is also the highest-level driving test license issued so far in China. 20 18 12, Ma Xiao Zhixing released the PonyPilot Robotaxi project, which took the lead in opening the road to normal operation in the pilot city of Guangzhou and became the first company in China market to provide Robotaxi services; On 20 19, 1 1 year 10, Ma Xiao Zhixing launched the first Robotaxi service for the general public in California, which laid the foundation for it to provide autonomous driving service on a global scale. Ma Xiao Zhixing has been working hard to promote the commercialization process and make a global layout. It is these efforts that have won the appreciation of investors including Toyota.
As the largest automobile manufacturer in the world, Toyota sells more than10 million new cars every year. The investment of such a company brings not only capital, but also powerful resources behind Toyota. As Ma Xiao Zhixing said in the announcement: "This cooperation is conducive to the deep integration of first-class autonomous driving technology and first-class vehicle platform." Toyota started the research and development of autonomous driving very early. In order to complete the transformation from a traditional automobile manufacturer to a mobile travel platform, Toyota established TRI(Toyota? Research? Institute) is responsible for the research on the frontier technology of autonomous driving and has invested in the United States? ATG, Uber's autonomous driving department, chose to join hands with Didi to seize the cake of China Mobile's trip. This investment in Ma Xiao Zhixing will further strengthen its strength in China.
Great blessing of parts
Coincidentally, another self-driving startup, Shi Yu Technology, also officially announced that it has obtained a strategic investment from Bosch in the B round of financing. In the same period, the investment also includes top VC, PE and local strategic emerging industry funds such as Shenzhen Venture Capital, CICC Capital, Xiamen Seven Wolves Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Fund and Chongqing Liangjiang Service Fund. Shi Yu Science and Technology has not announced the specific financing amount and post-investment valuation.
Among all investors in this round of financing of Shi Yu Science and Technology, Bosch Venture Capital is the most concerned. Bosch Venture Capital is a technology investor under the component giant Bosch, looking for innovative start-ups at different stages of development around the world that may change the whole industry. Its investment activities are mainly concentrated in technology companies related to Bosch's current and future business. For the investment in the field of autonomous driving, Jiang Hongquan, a partner of Bosch Venture Capital, once said that the two technical points they are interested in are the overall solution of autonomous driving software and hardware and lidar sensors. This time, it is precisely because they took a fancy to Shi Yu Science and Technology's technical research and development strength and landing ability in the overall solution of autopilot software and hardware.
20 17, Shi Yu Science and Technology cooperated with Guangzhou Baiyun Airport to deploy unmanned car ferry at Baiyun Airport to provide airport ferry service for Chinese and foreign tourists. In 20 18, Shi Yu Science and Technology and Hongkong International Airport formally cooperated in "unmanned logistics" and deployed several unmanned electric logistics trailers to realize the trial operation of end-to-end cargo transportation in the airport; 2065438+September 2009, Shi Yu Science and Technology enabled the smart airport construction of Daxing Airport with the innovative application of "unmanned driving+smart airport", which once again promoted the smart operation of the airport; 20130 February, 9 19 After more than two years of R&D, testing and trial operation, Shi Yu Science and Technology launched an unmanned logistics vehicle at the Hong Kong International Airport to provide luggage transportation services for passengers, becoming the first project in the world to operate normally under the airport operating environment.
The blessing of Bosch, the world's largest supplier of auto parts, will bring more global resources to Shi Yu Science and Technology and make the commercialization of Shi Yu Science and Technology smoother. Dr IngoRamesohl, managing partner of Bosch Venture Capital, said, "The L4 autopilot platform developed by Shi Yu Science and Technology can meet the demand of improving logistics efficiency. Shi Yu Technology will further enrich Bosch Venture Capital's investment portfolio in the field of autonomous driving and bring more cooperation opportunities to Bosch. " Wu Gansha, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Shi Yu Science and Technology, said: "The cooperation with Bosch will help Shi Yu Science and Technology upgrade its products and services to better serve customers around the world."
Ma Xiao Zhixing and Shi Yu Science and Technology respectively represent two choices of commercialization. The former takes intelligent behavior as the core and Robotaxi as the commercialization approach, while the latter takes the low-speed automatic driving scene in a closed environment as the breakthrough. Money never sleeps. It can be seen from the two financing that although capital has become more rational and cautious, it has not lost its enthusiasm for the autonomous driving industry. As long as they are the best in their own fields and strive to explore ways of commercialization, they can all be appreciated by Bole.
Behind the giant
Whether it is Ma Xiao Zhixing or Shi Yu Technology, we have found some exciting things from the investors of the two companies. Different from the original pure financial investment, we see that strong industrial capital is increasing investment in China's autonomous driving. Toyota and Bosch, one of the world's largest vehicle manufacturers and the other of the world's largest parts suppliers, bring not only real financial funds, but also powerful global industrial chain resources.
Automatic driving is a huge cross-industry and cross-regional project, which requires close cooperation from all walks of life and the international community. Even powerful industrial giants have to adopt a two-line layout strategy to deal with this technological revolution. Volkswagen, GM, Ford, Hyundai, Nissan and other large global automobile companies have adopted the strategy of "self-research+foreign investment" to achieve global layout.
For global autonomous driving companies, having an industrial giant as the backing seems to be a necessary condition for them to enter the first echelon. Behind Cruise are GM and Honda, Argo? After AI, Ford and Volkswagen, and after Uber and Didi, Toyota. Even if it is backed by Alphabet (Google's parent company), Waymo, currently ranked first, has chosen to cooperate with Renault Mitsubishi Nissan Alliance.
China autonomous driving start-ups have experienced a round of elimination and development. In the first stage, they attract investors by talents, and in the second stage, they attract investors by technology (prototype). At present, most self-driving companies in China have reached the third stage, attracting capital by commercialization, and obtaining capital recognition through the self-driving test and Robotaxi trial operation, but they can't jump to the next stage for a long time and enter the stage of large-scale normal operation. With the strong support of industrial capital in terms of capital and resources, China Autopilot Head Company will officially enter the stage of competing with American Head Company and start a new chapter in large-scale operation.
-End-
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.