China autonomous driving player Minieye raises $120m

CICC Alpha and Dongfeng Asset Management co-led the first tranche in July last year, which saw existing investors Harvest Capital Management and Vision Plus Capital re-up.

A second tranche was provided in February by Guokai National Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrading Fund, Unicom CICC Investment, CICC Changde Emerging Industry Fund, Chongqing kexing Kechuang Equity Investment Fund, and Oriental Fortune Capital.

Other investors include Nio Capital and Hong Kong-listed broker Shenwan Hongyuan. Harvest, Vision Plus, and Oriental Fortune participated in a CNY 270 million Series C in October 2020

Founded in 2014, Minieye focuses on L1 and L2 autonomous driving solutions. L1 is characterised by adaptive cruise control, which aims to keep a safe distance between the vehicles. L2 is known as advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS). A typical use-case is autonomous parking.

Minieye claims to have expanded its market share through a "pre-installation and mass production" strategy. The company offers assisted driving and parking solutions to customers including Dongfeng Motor, Geely, SAIC Motor, and BYD. It also aims to develop higher-level autonomous driving systems.

ADAS has become a competitive area, especially with advancement of the robotaxi segment. Recent activity in this space includes WeRide receiving strategic investment from German engineering giant Bosch with a view to co-developing L2 and L3 autonomous driving solutions for Chinese original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

Other competitors include Freetech and ZongMu Technology which focuses on autonomous parking. Autonomous driving solutions developer Momenta is developing both L2 and L4 solutions.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Technology
• China
• autonomous driving
• Cathay Capital Private Equity
• Nio Capital
• automobiles