China autonomous road sweeping start-up raises $30m

Opple Capital and existing investor SkyChee Ventures also participated, as did Autowise founder Chao Huang. The capital will mainly be used for technology R&D, commercial operations, and an overseas expansion.

Autowise was established in 2017 initially as a general purpose autonomous driving technology developer. Huang was previously leader and chief engineer of the autopilot division of ride-hailing company Didi. Before that, he was R&D leader for the deep learning platform at Baidu Research Institute.

In its first year of operation, Autowise established one of China's first robotaxi fleets in Shanghai and soon begain pivoting toward the road sweeping niche. In 2019, the company claimed to achieve a global first by acquiring a road test license for autonomous sweepers. Its autonomous sweeper fleet consists of different units that weigh up to 18 tons.

The company has reported a tenfold increase in revenue year-on-year for both the fist and second quarters this year despite pandemic-related headwinds. To date, it has deployed nearly 200 autonomous road sweepers i across more than 20 cities in China, Switzerland, Germany, and the US.

"We have verified the business model of autonomous driving on a large scale, with orders and revenue growing rapidly. This is the key factor for us to be able to complete fundraising in current market conditions. We will further expand the commercialisation scale and use autonomous driving to reduce costs and increase efficiency for traditional industries,” Huang said.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Greater China
• Technology
• Early-stage
• China
• autonomous driving
• automobiles