NIO Capital's Picks

 

NIO Capital Co-leads Pre-A Round of Financing for Chip Developer CIX Technology

 

NIO Capital co-led Pre-A round of financing for CIX Technology, a Shanghai-based startup committed to developing general chips based on the Arm architecture for laptops, tablets, and automobile cockpits. The company will use the fresh capital for expanding the R&D team and accelerating its market expansion and ecosystem construction.

The chip developed by CIX is similar to Apple's M2 chip released in June this year, which is a system on a chip (SoC), combining numerous technologies into a single chip, featuring a unified memory architecture for dramatically improved performance and efficiency.

 

NIO Capital Leads Pre-A Round of Financing for Autonomous Driving Sanitation Vehicle Startup Yunchuang Zhixing

 

NIO Capital led pre-A round of financing totaling tens of millions of yuan for Yunchuang Zhixing, a company making self-driving sanitation vehicles. The startup will use the capital for R&D, mass production, and wider commercial deployment. Founded in March 2021, Yunchuang Zhixing is an autonomous driving company focusing on the sanitation sector and is dedicated to providing one-stop solutions for unmanned sanitation operations.

 

Portfolio Spotlight

 

NIO Capital's Portfolio Companies Featured on MIT Technology Review's TR50

 

Three NIO Capital's portfolio companies, Black Sesame Technologies, EV battery maker CATL, and DPU developer Jaguar Microsystems, rank in MIT Technology Review's list of the 50 smartest companies in China 2021 (TR50 list). Themed on sustainable future, this year's list focuses on the innovation born in, led by and serving China, trying to predict those companies capable of leading the global technology development.

 

NIO Capital's Portfolio Companies Feature on the List of Fortune China 2022 Most Influential Startups in China

 

Two of the portfolio companies, autonomous driving chips developer Black Sesame Technologies and autonomous truck developer Eacon, entered the latest list of 84 most influential startups in China unveiled by Fortune China.

Fortune China said what those companies were doing and planned to do would help address social issues. The startups' profits and profit growth proved that they are succeeding in changing the world and their success will continue.

 

NIO Capital's Portfolio Companies Win Honors from China Entrepreneur Magazine

 

China Entrepreneur, an influential Chinese magazine dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship, released two lists honoring innovative companies in the country.

In the list of 21 high-growth innovative companies of 2022, five NIO Capital's portfolio companies featured, namely autonomous driving technology company Momenta, autonomous driving chip developer Black Sesame Technologies, autonomous trucking startup Inceptio Technology, battery-swap services provider Aulton New Energy, and semiconductor startup Biren Technology. The first four account for two-thirds of the intelligent vehicle-related companies on the list.

Another three portfolio companies, global supplier of image-grade LiDAR Innovusion, fitness technology company FITURE, and Chinese AR/MR technology developer Nreal, ranked in the list honoring 100 small- and medium-sized companies with innovative spirit and great potential.

 

Automobiles and Logistics

 

Innovusion Sees 10,000th LiDAR Roll off the Production Line; Launches Holographic Vehicle Perception System

 

LiDAR supplier Innovusion saw its 10,000th high-performance automotive-level LiDAR, Falcon, roll off the assembly line, pioneering to mass produce high-performance LiDAR for advanced driving assistance systems.

The company also introduced its self-developed holographic vehicle sensing solution, the OmniSense CD2.0.

The solution, which is built on Innovusion's graphic-level LiDAR and strong algorithm-based perception capability, can help read vehicle size, send precise signals to trigger a certain function of the vehicle, detect traffic violations and monitor traffic flow, to make the vehicle more intelligent and facilitate autonomous driving.

 

Trunktech Signs Deal with CNOOC Energy Logistics to Operate the World’S First Autonomous Driving Project in the Offshore Oil Industry

 

Autonomous truck maker TrunkTech has joined hands with CNOOC Energy Logistics Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), China's largest offshore oil and gas producer, to start the world's first autonomous driving project for the offshore oil industry in Huizhou, Guangdong Province. The truck manufacturer will later provide transport services leveraging its autonomous trucks to CNOOC Energy Logistics in other bases of the company.

 

Eacon Operates Autonomous Mining Trucks without a Safety Supervisor

 

Beijing-based autonomous truck developer Eacon has normalized the operation of autonomous mining trucks without a safety supervisor in Zhundong open-pit coal mine.

Eacon is the first company to achieve Level 4 autonomous driving at mines and to realize 24-hour operation, signaling that the commercialization of autonomous mining trucks is around the corner. This move is expected to improve safety in the mining process.

 

Pony.Ai Gets Green Light to Pilot Robotaxi Commercial Operation in Beijing; Establishes JV with SANY Heavy Truck to Develop Next Generation of Autonomous Trucks for Mass Production

 

Autonomous driving technology company Pony.ai has been one of the companies granted permission to offer paid services in Beijing. It will provide commercial Robotaxi services within an area of 60 square kilometers in Yizhuang, a suburb of Beijing. There will be no safety operator behind the steering wheel, but a safety supervisor will sit in the front passenger seat.

Pony.ai announced recently that it would establish a joint venture with SANY Heavy Truck, a subsidiary of Chinese heavy equipment manufacturer SANY Heavy Industry, to develop, manufacture and sell Level 4 autonomous heavy trucks and create a world-leading autonomous heavy truck brand. The JV plans to start small-scale deliveries of the Level 4 trucks in 2022 and 2023. Mass production will begin in 2024 and the annual production is expected to reach about 10,000 units within a few years.

 

'What Momenta is Doing is Truly Artificial Intelligence', Fortune Says

 

In a recent article, Fortune said that while dozens of companies worldwide are developing next-generation systems for autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence company Momenta's strategy may bring it to fruition faster.

The company's data-driven algorithms can handle more complex situations and nuances. "What Momenta is doing is truly artificial intelligence," Ram Vasudevan, associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, told Fortune.

 

Energy

 

YKC Completes Pre-C Round of Financing; Joins Hands with DST to Empower the Intelligent Logistics Charging Ecosystem

 

Chinese EV charging service provider YKC Charging has completed pre-C round of financing with investment by ABB. Leveraging ABB's global reach, the two parties will jointly build a charging network ecosystem to promote the development of the electrification of transportation worldwide.

YKC recently joined hands with new energy logistics vehicle service provider DST, followed by a series of cooperation with local logistics giants, such as SF Express, Huolala, and JD Logistics. YKC will offer smart charging services for DST, leveraging its 240,000 charging terminals, to empower DST's intelligent logistics charging ecosystem.

 

Newlink Signs Deal with GLP to Create New Financial Services to Relieve the Operation Pressure of Logistics Companies

 

Digital energy solutions provider NewLink and logistics real estate investor and developer GLP has completed a digital supply chain financing service, representing the start of their cooperation. The two parties will provide companies, especially logistics ones, with a "refuel first, pay later" service to ease the financial pressure of energy consumption on enterprises.

 

Cutting-edge Technologies

 

Biren Technology Joins Mlcommons to Promote Global Open Collaboration on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

 

Biren Technology joined MLCommons, an open engineering consortium, to together create new industry benchmarks with companies in the global machine learning and AI sectors and to enhance open collaboration. Before joining MLCommons, Biren Technology created MLPerf Inference, a benchmark suite for measuring how fast systems can process inputs and produce results using a trained model.

The benchmark is now widely recognized by machine learning and AI sectors, and relevant academic papers have been published in the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA) 2020, a premier forum for new ideas and research results in computer architecture.

 

CIX Technology Joins Linaro's Windows on Arm Group

 

Chinese chip developer CIX Technology has joined Linaro, an open-source collaborative engineering organization dedicated to software development for the Arm ecosystem, becoming China's first company to be a member of Linaro's Windows on Arm Group.

The company is joining the group to help advance the global Windows on Arm ecosystem by looking at tools for Arm native development and promoting them in the local market.

 

Bocloud Recognized as a Representative Vendor by Gartner

 

Cloud computing solution supplier BoCloud has been recognized as a representative vendor in the latest China Context: Market Guide for Cloud Management Tooling released by Gartner, a global research and advisory company.

The guide aims to provide an analysis of the current market and recommendations for companies to find the best cloud management tools.

 

Standard Robots Empowers Trusco's Distribution Center; Partners with Innowave Tech

 

Standard Robots, a global leader in Autonomous Mobile Robot technology, provides a flexible and intelligent logistics solution for the Distribution Center of Japan-based Trusco Nakayama Corporation, a specialized trading company that supports Japan's manufacturing industry with an inventory of machine tools. The solution improves the efficiency, accuracy and flexibility of product picking up, loading, and delivery, upgrading the supply chain between the warehouse and loading dock.

 

Standard Robots and Sichuan-based high-tech enterprise ZJL Robot have cooperated with Innowave Tech, a Singapore-based industrial AI technology company, to create a fully automatic manufacturing solution for the semiconductor industry. Robots provided by Standard Robots pick up, drop off, and deliver multiple types of wafer cassettes in varied CP testing of wafers in the semiconductor production process, making the whole process fully automatic and intelligent.