China's Pony.ai adds $112m to Series A round
ClearVue Partners and Eight Roads Ventures have led a $112 million investment in China and US-based autonomous driving technology developer Pony.ai that brings the start-up’s total Series A funding to $214 million.
Other investors included Green Pine Capital Partners, China Merchants Capital, Redpoint Ventures China, Delong Capital, and Adrian Cheng, the founder of K11 Art Foundation. Existing backers Sequoia Capital China, Morningside Ventures, DCM Ventures, and Hongtai Capital also participated.
Previous investors also include Comcast Ventures, Legend Capital, Puhua Capital Qichen Capital Silicon Valley Future Capital, and IDG Capital. According to a release, Sequoia and Morningside have increased their ownership stakes in the company in the latest round.
It extends a $112 million Series A commitment received in January that was billed at the time as a completion of the round. The fresh capital will be used to develop technology, establish new partnerships, accelerate commercialization, and hire staff across the US and China.
“We believe autonomous vehicles will be a rare life-altering technology, and we have confidence Pony.ai will be a leader in this field,” said Jarlon Tsang, a managing partner at Eight Roads. “We are impressed with the management’s thoughtful approach to building this technology and delivering it to the market.”
Founded in 2016 by James Peng, formerly the chief architect for China’s Baidu, Pony.ai aims to build safe and reliable autonomous driving technology that is deliverable on a global scale. It claims that its products enable cars to accurately perceive their surroundings, predict what others will do, and maneuver accordingly.
Pony.ai operates an autonomous ride-hailing fleet that is said to be the first of its kind in China. To date, it has provided more than 1,000 rides to the general public in Guangzhou over an area of about 30 square kilometers. Last month, the company became the first start-up to secure an autonomous vehicle testing license in Beijing. The staff is said to have tripled in size since the beginning of the year.
Investor confidence in autonomous driving in China is underpinned by a number of fundamental changes in user behavior trends, as well as the country’s rising wealth base and smart city initiatives aimed at reducing urban congestion. Other recent activity in this space includes a $128 million Series A round for Shenzhen-based Roadstar led by Shenzhen Capital and Wu Capital.
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