CDH joins Series D for Chinese AI truck player
CDH Investments has participated in the $120 million second tranche of a Series D round for TuSimple, a China and US-based developer of autonomous driving technology for trucks.
Additional commitments came from Korean auto parts supplier Mando Corporation and UPS, which announced last month that it would take a minority stake in the company. TuSimple is already working with UPS on a pilot project that has seen autonomous trucks move daily revenue-generating loads in Arizona. The company currently serves 18 customers in total.
The company’s total funding now stands at $285 million. It achieved a valuation in excess of $1 billion with the completion of the first tranche of the Series D in February. Chinese internet services platform Sina Corp. led the $95 million round with participation from Composite Capital, a Hong Kong-based hedge fund founded by a former partner at Hillhouse Capital.
TuSimple was established in 2015 by California Institute of Technology graduate Xiaodi Hou. The company obtained an autonomous vehicle testing permit from the state of California in 2017 and then completed level four (L4) autonomous driving tests – which means the car is fully self-driving in certain environments, but it still needs a driver in the seat – between California and Arizona.
TuSimple plans to build out its commercial autonomous fleet – on closing the first tranche of the Series D, the company said it wanted to surpass 50 trucks by June and expand into Texas – and pursue joint programs with original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and other technology developers. Full commercial operation of self-driving trucks is dependent on software being integrated with powertrain, braking and steering systems.
In China, TuSimple was among the first batch of companies selected to run AI-enabled transportation pilot tests in Shanghai. It has agreed to work with Lingang New City, an urban development in Pudong New Area that forms part of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, on a large-scale commercial demonstration project involving unmanned trucks.
“Driving is not a new concept, but with the increase in chip computing power and the rapid decline in hardware costs, the impact of driverless solutions on logistics will be highly disruptive,” said Wei Ying, a managing director at CDH. “We believe that driverless solutions are essential to the sustainable development of the logistics industry.”
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