China autonomous truck developer DeepWay raises $112m
China’s DeepWay, a smart electric truck developer established by Baidu, has raised CNY 770m (USD 112m) in an extended Series A round featuring SB China Venture Capital (SBCVC).
SBCVC co-led the round with textiles and aluminium company Shandong Weiqiao Pioneering Group. Existing investor Qiming Venture Partners re-upped.
Qiming led a CNY 460m Series A investment last year at a post-money valuation of CNY 3bn. Lenovo Capital & Incubator Group, Vlight Capital, CCB Trust, Empowtech Capital, Bocom International, and Huagai Capital also participated.
Baidu, an early mover in China’s autonomous driving space, set up DeepWay in December 2020 in conjunction with truck logistics company Shiqiao. Baidu provides full-stack autonomous driving R&D capabilities, while Shiqiao helps with commercial landing and data accumulation.
The new round will go toward the manufacturing of smart electric heavy-duty trucks and R&D for intelligent driving systems. Weiqiao Pioneering will be one of DeepWay’s first customers.
“We are optimistic about the future development of DeepWay and look forward to the potential opportunities to collaborate with them on light weight design for heavy-duty truck, digital platform for smart logistics and more,” Bo Zhang, chairman of Weiqiao, said in a statement.
“We also plan to build a long-term, far-reaching relationship with DeepWay with the mindset of jointly embracing the era of smart logistics.”
Deepway obtained autonomous driving trial permission from Tianjing city this month. The company has planned to start mass production in June 2023 and to deliver 1,000 smart electric heavy-duty trucks this year.
“The Chinese government's carbon peak and carbon neutral policies have opened up expansive opportunities to the industry chain for the renewable energy sector,” Zhang Yupeng, a partner at SBCVC, added.
“DeepWay's unique competitiveness consists of full-stack capabilities to independently develop and manufacture next-generation heavy-duty electric trucks based on gathering together some of the best talent in the sector and deploying industry-leading self-driving technologies, on top of over 10 years of experience in serving customers in truck logistics scenarios.”
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