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Pony.ai, the Chinese autonomous vehicle startup and relative newcomer to the trade, is now valued at $5.3 billion following a contemporary injection of $267 million in funding.
The spherical was led by TIP, an innovation fund inside the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board that focuses on late-stage enterprise and progress fairness investments in corporations that ship disruptive expertise. Existing companions Fidelity China Special Situations PLC, 5Y Capital (previously Morningside Venture Capital), ClearVue Partners and Eight Roads additionally participated within the spherical.
The new funds will primarily be used for analysis and growth, in keeping with the corporate.
Pony.ai has gained over buyers, OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers throughout its four-year existence. The firm, which operates in China and California, has raised greater than $1 billion since its founding, together with $400 million from Toyota. Pony has a number of partnerships or collaborations with automakers and suppliers, together with Bosch, Hyundai and Toyota.
Pony is constructing what it describes as an agnostic digital driver for all sizes of automobiles, from small automobiles to giant vans, and to function on each ridesharing and logistics (supply) service networks. The firm mentioned again in 2019 that it was working with OEMs and suppliers to use its automated expertise to the long-haul trucking market. But it’s maybe greatest identified for its effort round robotaxis.
The firm has launched ridesharing and commuter pilots in Fremont and Irvine, California and Guangzhou, China. Last yr, a fleet of electrical, autonomous Hyundai Kona crossovers outfitted with a self-driving system from Pony.ai and Via’s ride-hailing platform started shuttling prospects on public roads. The robotaxi service, known as BotRide, wasn’t a driverless service, as there was a human security driver behind the wheel always. The BotRide pilot concluded in January 2020.
The firm then began working a public robotaxi service known as PonyPilot within the Irvine space. Pony shifted that robotaxi service from shuttling folks to packages because the COVID-19 pandemic swept by means of the world. In April, Pony.ai introduced it had partnered with e-commerce platform Yamibuy to offer autonomous last-mile supply service to prospects in Irvine. The new supply service was launched to offer further capability to handle the surge of on-line orders triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, Pony.ai mentioned on the time.
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