WeRide scores $400 million investment with $4.4 billion valuation

Beijing (Gasgoo)- China’s autonomous driving startup, WeRide, recently closed its latest financing round, raising over $400 million, a local media outlet reported on March 23rd.

Photo credit: WeRide

Investors of this round include WeRide’s existing shareholders, GAC Group, and newcomers, namely Bosch, China-Arab Investment Funds, and Carley Group. After the round, WeRide’s valuation reached $4.4 billion.

Notably, China-Arab Investment Funds also participated in the D investment round of another local autonomous driving company, Pony.ai. Since each startup’s establishment, both Pony.ai and WeRide have raised over $1 billion in investment funds. The two startups are currently the two most valuable autonomous driving startups among all peer companies that operate Robotaxis in China.

At the NVIDIA GTC 2022, WeRide announced that it would build its new-generation autonomous driving solution based on NVIDIA’s mass-produced autonomous vehicle platform, NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion™. With the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin SoC, WeRide plans to further expand its Robotaxi, Robobus, and Robovan fleet, accelerating commercialization.

Up until January 2022, WeRide has accumulated over 10 million kilometers of autonomous driving mileage on open roads. Its multi-form autonomous vehicle fleet has expanded to over 300 vehicles. During the two years of public mobility services, WeRide has served over 180,000 passengers in 350,000 trips via its Robotaxis.