With Baidu as the new shareholder, ECARX will move further to autonomous driving.
Vehicle intelligence technology provider ECARX has announced receipt of a CNY 1.3 million round A financing. The investment was led by Baidu and followed by SIG. ECARX’s estimated value after the financing is now CNY 10+ million.
Invested in by Geely, ECARX is an independent operating subsidiary that focuses on connected vehicles and smart cockpits. Its smart cockpit product matrix includes 5G connectivity, in-vehicle multimedia system, voice assistance, etc. The intelligent vehicle products integrate various sensors with high precision map technologies. ECARX’s customized in-vehicle system for Geely – GKUI – has more than 2.2 million users.
ECARX is also collaborating with tech giants like Alibaba, Huawei, and Baidu, and is now the leading player in vehicle intelligence. After gaining support from Baidu this time, ECARX will have a closer connection with Apollo, which brings ECARX more support in autonomous driving system development.
The round A funding will be mainly used for the R&D of autonomous driving chips, high precision maps, and other autonomous driving technologies. ECARX plans to found an R&D center in Europe to serve the local market. According to CEO Ziyu Shen, ECARX’s goal is to provide autonomous driving chips to Geely before 2024. With a higher R&D budget and more tech giant shareholders, ECARX is expected to be more independent to Geely and will serve more automobile manufacturers with vehicle intelligent platforms.