Xiaomi invests $70m in China LiDAR specialist Hesai
Xiaomi Industrial Investment Fund, a vehicle controlled by smart devices brand Xiaomi, has invested $70 million in Hesai Technology, a China-based developer of sensors used in autonomous driving.
This is an extension to a $300 million Series D round led by GL Ventures in June. The company raised a $173 million Series C led by Germany's Bosch Group and existing investor Lightspeed China Partners in January 2020.
Xiaomi is moving aggressively into the mobility space. In August, it acquired Deepmotion, a VC-backed autonomous driving technology developer. Earlier in the year, the company announced plans to invest $10 billion in electric vehicles (EV) over the next decade.
Hesai will use the new funding to support the mass production of pre-installed hybrid solid-state LiDAR. Its latest product, AT128, has received millions of orders from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as EV players Li-Auto and HiPhi, Lotus Cars, and Jidu, a smart car brand launched by Baidu and Geely Auto. Mass production will start in 2022.
LiDAR, which stands for light detection and ranging, uses light to measure the distance of obstacles in autonomous driving. Hesai is also building an intelligent manufacturing center and conducting R&D on automotive-grade high-performance LiDAR chips.
Hesai was founded in Silicon Valley in 2013 but relocated to Shanghai the following year. It employs 500 people across two commercialization centers and two manufacturing centers in China and the US. Its other backers include Baidu, ZhenFund, Pagoda Investment, PreAngel Partners, Lighthouse Capital, and Dami Ventures, according to AVCJ Research.
Hesai applied for a Star Market IPO in March 2020 but withdrew the application earlier this year. This followed a patent dispute with a US company Velodyne.
James Mi, a founding partner at Lightspeed, told the AVCJ Private Equity & Venture Forum this week that he flew to the US to meet top intellectual property lawyers and fight the lawsuit. Velodyne eventually dropped the action and the companies reached an agreement for global across-licensing.
Other China LiDAR technology companies that have received private equity funding include RoboSense and Innovusion. The latter is best known as a supplier to local EV manufacturer Nio.
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