This is the third tranche of a Series C. It comes four months after a CNY 1.2 billion round led by Baidu Capital and SoftBank Vision Fund.
GL Ventures, a venture capital fund under Chinese asset manager Hillhouse Capital Group, disclosed the investment in XAG on March 18.
Agriculture drone specialist XAG is planning to combine the algorithm capability with the hardware of practical application scenarios, AI technology and UAV. This is part of the company's unmanned vehicle vision, which also involves bringing other intelligent devices to the farmland, so as to promote the standardization of the planting processes through the application of scientific and technological tools in agricultural cultivation.
Peng Bin, founder and chairman of Guangzhou-based XAG, told Chinese media channel Caixin that the company is valued at nearly CNY 10 billion. Peng said XAG will use the funding to increase investment in R&D and further develop its robotics products.
To date, the firm has gone through five rounds of financing, with an official financing amount of CNY 1.6 billion.
The company was founded in 2007 as a UAV company, focusing on the R&D and manufacturing of flight control systems, providing civil UAVs. Since 2013, the company has tried to use UAVs in agriculture in order to solve China's agricultural labor shortage problems. In 2019, it officially transformed into an 'agricultural technology company.'
As of 2020, XAG's products and services have served more than 9.31 million farmers, 780 million mu of farmland and 42 countries and regions. According to official data, in 2020, the company's revenue increased by 253%.