DiDi’s autonomous driving company complete $500 million worth of fundraising

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- China's ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing (DiDi) announced on May 29 it has closed a fundraising round of over $500 million for its autonomous driving subsidiary.

DiDi said the round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and signifies the first time that DiDi's autonomous driving unit obtained external funding support after it was separated as an independent company.

(Photo source: DiDi)

The money raised will be used to help the subsidiary strengthen R&D and testing, deepen the cooperation with industrial partners, and promote the application of passenger-carrying autonomous cars in domestic and overseas specific areas, in a bid to improve the travelling safety and efficiency.

After the money being put in place, DiDi will beef up the investment in such areas as autonomous driving, vehicle-road cooperation and relevant AI technologies, and explore the practical usage of those technical fruits.

DiDi set up in April a Beijing-registered company dubbed Beijing Woya Technology Co.,Ltd., according to the business data search platform Tianyancha. Wei Junqing, CTO of DiDi's autonomous driving company, serves as the new firm's legal representative.

The newly-established company is wholly owned by Shanghai DiDi Woya Technology Co.,Ltd, which is held as to 90% by Cheng Wei, founder and CEO of DiDi, and 10% by Zhang Bo, DiDi's CTO.

After reached by a local media outlet, DiDi revealed that it plans to conduct autonomous vehicle tests in the Chinese capital.

In last August, DiDi hived off its autonomous driving unit as a separate company run by CTO Zhang Bo. But its R&D of the emerging technology could data back to 2016, when it decided to form its own self-driving technology team.

Unveiled in Feb. 2018, DiDi's autonomous vehicles have been available for road tests in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou and California. In last September, DiDi obtained the first license plates applied to the demonstration of manned autonomous driving tests in Shanghai.

The autonomous driving subsidiary is teaming up with DiDi's Xiaoju Automobile Solutions and DiDi Finance on exploring the integrated solutions for future mobility services, including the building of smart charging piles, fleet maintenance and insurance.