LiDAR maker Hesai Photonics secures USD 300 million in Series D funding

Hesai Photonics Technology Co. Ltd., a leading Shanghai-based LiDAR company, has reportedly secured USD 300 million in a Series D funding round which was led by GL Ventures LLC, Xiaomi Corporation, Hillhouse Capital Group, Meituan, and CPE.

The round also saw participation from Huatai Securities Co. Ltd., ON Semiconductor Corporation, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Baidu Inc., Lightspeed China Partners, Robert Bosch GmbH, and Quiming Venture Partners.

According to reliable sources, the fresh funds will be utilized to develop a smart manufacturing center and mass-producing hybrid solid-state LiDAR chips for Hesai’s OEM customer base.

Moreover, the company also aims to expand its product portfolio by investing funds in the research & development of automotive-grade LiDAR chips.

LiDAR technology has been receiving significant recognition as various robotaxi startups as well as automakers have started including it in their autonomous vehicles. It is worth mentioning, however, that LiDAR technology is not limited to just robotaxis and electric vehicles, which is why Hesai has managed to gain attention from Xiaomi and Meituan.

If reports are to be believed, the Beijing-based food delivery provider Meituan is likely to profit from this investment by replacing human riders with LiDAR-enabled unmanned drones and vans.

Meanwhile, Xiaomi Corporation already produces hundreds of different connected devices and will highly benefit from using Hesai’s LiDAR technology, cited sources. The phone manufacturing giant also intends to make electric cars this year.

With around 500 employees, Hesai claims to have served clients across 23 countries. Its clients include Navya, Lyft, Bosch, Nuro, as well as other Chinese robotaxi operators including AutoX, WeRide, and Baidu.

The Shanghai-based LiDAR startup has also entered a joint venture agreement with a data labeling company called Scale AI to introduce an open-source data set for developing autonomous driving algorithms, sources claimed.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/07/china-lidar-hesai-300-million-funding/