Autonomous cars: Chinese start-up Haomo, backed by Great Wall Motor, raises fresh capital to develop driverless tech
Haomo.AI, an autonomous driving technology start-up backed by Great Wall Motor, has raised 100 million yuan (US$13.9 million) in a new round of financing buoyed by Chinese drivers' growing appetite for intelligent vehicles.
The Beijing-based firm said the proceeds it received from Chengdu Wufa Private Equity Fund Management will be used to enhance its research and development capability as the commercialisation of self-driving technology picks up in the world's largest automotive market.
"The year 2024 will witness the intelligent driving sector take off," Zhang Kai, chairman of Haomo said in a statement on Thursday. "Haomo will continue to strengthen the industry chain and accelerate the commercialisation of autonomous driving technologies."
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Wufa is an investment group funded by the local government of Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province.
The Series B1 fundraising comes after Haomo netted more than 1 billion yuan of capital in previous rounds of financing carried out since the company's establishment in 2019.
Its biggest backer is Great Wall Motor, China's largest sport-utility vehicle (SUV) maker.
Haomo forecast in Thursday's statement that 70 per cent of China's new cars will be fitted with an advanced driver assistant system (ADAS) in 2025.
"EV assemblers and key component suppliers in China are facing overcapacity and finding it difficult to raise additional capital, but technology providers, whose autonomous driving systems and digital products can bring new experiences to drivers and passengers, are still investment darlings," said Ding Haifeng, a consultant at Shanghai-based financial advisory firm Integrity. "A high level of intelligence helps carmakers to draw buyers."
In China, consumers now prefer smart EVs to petrol cars because most battery-powered vehicles come with self-driving capabilities and digital cockpits, according to Cui Dongshu, general secretary of the China Passenger Car Association.
Most intelligent vehicles on the mainland are classified as Level 2 (L2) or L2+, which stipulate that the driver must be alert and ready to take control at any time.
Haomo said its ADAS products were used in 20 different electric models, offering the cars capabilities such as automatic braking and lane-changing.
In October, the company unveiled three new driver-assistance systems it claimed were cheaper and better than existing ones.
The new products, capable of L2 autonomy, cost vehicle assemblers as little as 3,000 yuan (US$417) apiece, compared to the average price of at least US$2,000.
Haomo said the fresh funds it raised from Wufa would also be invested in developing robotic technologies for autonomous vehicles used for services such as cleaning and police patrols that are expected to be launched in the Wuhou district of Chengdu.
China's congested roads, vast population and long urban commutes have created a voluminous data file that helped compress the learning curve for self-driving systems, getting them into the mainstream sooner than in many other markets, analysts have said.
Some Chinese carmakers, like Guangzhou-based Xpeng, have received the necessary regulatory approvals to test their advanced autonomous driving systems for commercial use.
Some Xpeng cars, fitted with the company's X NGP (Navigation Guided Pilot) software, are now capable of autonomous driving in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
Tesla's Full Self-Driving system has not been approved by Chinese authorities and is not available in the carmaker's vehicles sold in the country.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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