Chinese self-driving solution provider QCraft raises $100 million in series A+ funding

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Chinese autonomous driving startup Qcraft announced on Monday it closed the series A+ financing round with $100 million raised. The latest funding was led by Yunfeng Capital and Genesis Capital, and also attracted such financing institutes as Longzhu Capital, the venture capital arm of Chinese online-to-offline giant Meituan, and IDG Capital, one of Qcraft's existing investors.

QCraft's robobus fleet, photo credit: QCraft

Since the foundation in 2019, QCraft has made headways in building a “Super Factory” for autonomous driving. According to the startup, it has formed an automation close-loop focusing to simulation technologies to efficiently utilize enormous volume of data. In addition, leveraging its full-stack technical capability, the company has launched the self-driving solution “Driven-by-QCraft” dedicated to handling complex urban transport scenarios and available for diverse car models. To commercialize its self-driving technologies, the company has deployed minibuses in nearly 10 cities to provide mobility services for tens of thousands residents.

Under the “Super Factory” strategy, QCraft has rolled out the “Longzhou” (meaning “Dragon Boat”) series autonomous cars applicable to a number of scenarios like ride-hailing service, bus, and shuttle. Car numbers of the fleet are expected to exceed 100 units by 2021.

The “Longzhou” autonomous cars are capable of 360-degree perception and carry the display system armed with 5G and V2X (vehicle-to-everything) technologies, said QCraft.

The startup has so far put around 70 mini robobuses into road tests and operations in Suzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Beijing, and Wuxi. In the first half of this year, QCraft launched in Jiaxing and Xi'an the mid-/large-sized smart buses equipped with level 3 driver assistance system.