The funds will be used to boost the production of the new sedan model – ET7.
On May 11, the Suzhou-based lidar supplier Innovusion raised a USD 64 million Series B. This round was co-financed by Temasek, Bertelsmann Asia Investment Fund and Pleasure Capital, with participation from long-time shareholders, including Azure Capital, Stowe Capital and F-Prime Capital.
Innovusion indicated that the raised funds will be used to ramp up production to supply the ET7, a new sedan model from Chinese EV maker NIO. The company's co-founder and CEO Junwei Bao said that the company will invest more in its R&D centers in Silicon Valley and China, and will strongly support its supply chain partners to build a high-performance LiDAR mass production supply chain system.
In 2018, Innovusion completed a USD 30 million Series A round of funding led by Azure Capital, Fidelity International's Stowe Capital, and F-Prime Capital in the U.S. In January 2021, the company received a strategic investment from Junsheng Electronics.
Innovusion is a Chinese LiDAR R&D company dedicated to providing a suite of hardware and software solutions to meet the needs of autonomous driving mass production. Innovusion has a core R&D team in Silicon Valley, and a domestic manufacturing center in Wuhan Che Valley. With Suzhou High Speed Railway New City as the center, the company is actively expanding its business blueprint to other regions of China.
At NIO Day 2020, in January 2021, Azera unveiled its first smart electric sedan, the ET7, which was scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2022. This model is equipped with an image-grade ultra-long-range LIDAR developed by Innovusion. The LiDAR has a 120-degree ultra-wide viewing angle and ultra-high resolution, and can detect distances up to 500 meters.
Innovusion's unique 'fixed-eye gaze' feature can generate high-density point clouds locally in the field of view to obtain more accurate 3D information for better tracking of vehicles and pedestrians. The company shows that it is ready for the continued evolution of Azera's NAD full-stack autonomous driving technology.
The adoption of LIDAR has always been a point of contention in the smart car industry. For example, Tesla CEO Musk is a typical visionist. In the Tesla FSD beta V9 version, Musk claimed to apply vision technology without LiDAR.
However, due to functional needs and safety design considerations, China's carmakers, including Azera and Xiaopeng Auto, have generally chosen to carry LIDAR in their high-grade autonomous driving programs. Xiaopeng Auto's sedan P5 launched this year will also be equipped with two LiDARs from DJI's Livox Technology.