Morningside, Legend lead $112m round for China's Pony.ai

Sequoia Capital China and IDG Capital also participated in the round, alongside Hongtai Capital, Legend Star, Puhua Capital, Polaris Capital, DCM Ventures, Comcast Ventures and Silicon Valley Future Capital, a statement said.

Pony.ai was founded in late 2016 by James Peng, formerly the chief architect at Chinese search engine Baidu, and Tiancheng Lou, who previously worked on autonomous driving development for Google and Baidu. 

The company develops level four autonomous driving technology, which means the car is fully self-driving in certain environments but still needs a driver in the seat. It claims that its fully self-developed software algorithms enable a vehicle to accurately perceive its surroundings, predict what others will do, and maneuver itself accordingly. It has pilot cars driving in the Bay Area in the US and China today.

The company intends to use the latest funding to roll out a fleet of autonomous cars in the city of Guangzhou, where the company opened its Chinese headquarters last October. It will also continue to develop its technology, build key business partnerships in both the US and China, and to grow its team in both geographies.

"The self-driving vehicle is an inevitable trend that will disrupt the transportation system," said Wenji Jin, a managing director of Legend Capital. "Pony.ai is one of the very few companies we've seen that possesses the critical success factors: a team with a proven track record and extremely well-rounded technical expertise from both research and industry backgrounds."

A handful of Chinese self-driving technology companies have received backing from PE and VC investors. Qiming Venture Partners led a $54 million pre-Series A round for JingChi, which was also founded by former executives at Baidu, in September last year. Smart electric car maker Nio – formerly known as NextEV – raised $600 million in a Series C round in March.

Momenta and Hesai, which are both focused on developing driverless car software technology, have also received funding from VC and strategic investors.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Technology
• Early-stage
• China
• TMT
• Venture
• Sequoia Capital
• Legend Capital
• Morningside Technologies
• DCM-Doll Capital Management