China's VisionNav Robotics raises $80m
5Y Capital and Meituan, China’s leading online-to-offline services provider, have led a USD 80m Series C extension for VisionNav Robotics, a local manufacturer of driverless industrial vehicles.
It is said to be the largest single funding round in the driverless industrial vehicle space globally.
The company received seed funding from Coco Capital and Ivy Capital in 2017, AVCJ Research’s records show. Eastern Bell Capital provided a Series A the following year and re-upped in a CNY 100m (USD 14m) Series B in 2020. Lenovo Capital led that round with Flyfot Ventures participating. An extension of the same size closed later that year, led by IDG Capital and featuring existing investors.
A Series C amounting to hundreds of millions of renminbi closed last year, VisionNav stated. Investors included IDG, Lenovo, Eastern Bell, ByteDance, Shunwei Capital, and a fund launched by China Unicom and CICC Capital.
Warehouse robotics is another popular area, with the likes of Geek+, XYZ Robotics, Fair Robotics, and Mech-Mind closing rounds in the past 12 months. Some perform picking and sorting duties; others move merchandise around warehouses. Meituan is also an investor in Mech-Mind, while Meituan-backed Dragon Ball Capital has supported Fair Robotics.
VisionNav specialises in forklifts and tractors typically used for intralogistics in factories and warehouses. It has developed nine autonomous vehicle series and robot control systems to date.
The company claims to have accelerated its globalisation since the last funding round, establishing marketing bases in more than 30 territories. It has completed more than 350 projects, deploying 1,500 vehicles for clients involved in auto parts and tyre manufacturing, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, electronics, textiles, e-commerce, and third-party logistics.
Luyang Li, CEO of VisionNav, said in a statement that sales grew nearly 10-fold between 2019 and 2021. A year-on-year increase of 300% is expected in 2022 with average order size rising 350% and customer repurchases jumping 300%. He believes the industry is moving towards larger-scale and more standardised delivery.
Driverless industrial vehicles are said to address key pain points around lagging efficiency, recruitment challenges, and a lack of digitalisation. The proceeds of the latest round will go towards technology and product R&D, improving product stability and standardisation, and promoting large-scale implementation and localised delivery for global customers.
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