On September 26, Netease Technology News reported that KingChi Technology, an autonomous driving startup, has successfully closed its Pre-A round of funding, raising $52 million. The round was led by Qiming Venture Capital, with additional support from NVIDIA's GPU Ventures and other investors. This investment will help KingChi expand its global R&D team and accelerate the deployment of Level 4 autonomous vehicle fleets in China by the end of 2017. Yanzi Ping, a managing partner at Qiming, will join KingChi’s board of directors.
KingChi was founded in early April 2017 and quickly made significant progress. Within five weeks, the company completed its first closed-course autonomous test. On June 18, it became the 34th company to receive a California license for autonomous vehicle testing. Just 81 days after its founding, on June 24, KingChi conducted its first open-road autonomous test in Sunnyvale, California.
In August 2017, KingChi signed a comprehensive agreement with Anqing City in Anhui Province, allowing the company to deploy 50 autonomous vehicles for operational testing in the city before the end of the year. In 2018, KingChi plans to launch hundreds of vehicles equipped with NVIDIA DRIVE PX platforms to provide “robot taxi†services in Anqing.
“We are dedicated to building an innovative and intelligent mobility ecosystem that makes public travel safer, more efficient, and more comfortable,†said Wang Jing, founder and CEO of KingChi. “We aim to be the first company in the world to bring large-scale commercial applications of autonomous driving to China. This investment is a big step closer to achieving our dream.â€
Han Xu, co-founder and CTO of KingChi, added, “The NVIDIA DRIVE PX platform is crucial for enhancing KingChi’s deep learning capabilities. Its computing power significantly improves onboard performance, making our autonomous vehicles more secure and reliable. We look forward to working closely with NVIDIA to maximize the potential of DRIVE PX and realize our vision of bringing autonomous mobility to China.â€
Qi Mingping, a partner at Qiming Venture Capital, said, “Over the past few years, we have been closely following the development of AI and autonomous driving. These technologies will transform the future of human life. Wang Jing and his team have impressed us from the start, and we are excited to support KingChi as it becomes the first company to bring autonomous driving to the mass market.â€
Jeff Herbst, Vice President of Business Development at NVIDIA, commented, “Artificial intelligence is reshaping the transportation industry. We are thrilled to see KingChi’s remarkable progress and fully support their efforts in advancing driverless technology.â€
Dong Lei, Deputy Mayor of Anqing City, stated, “Anqing is a historic and culturally rich city that is rapidly developing. With the national push for industrial transformation, the local government is actively supporting emerging industries. We will fully back KingChi’s establishment in Anqing, support its R&D and testing efforts, and work together to create a model city for autonomous vehicle operations.â€
According to reports, KingChi is a fast-growing autonomous driving company with over 50 employees, 80% of whom are engineers. Many hold doctorates from top universities like Carnegie Mellon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and USC. The core team has decades of experience in autonomous technology, with members previously working at Baidu, Shenzhou Special Vehicles, Didi Chuxing, Uber, and Tesla.
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