ByteDance to Invest in Autonomous Driving Firm

Automotive Author: 马渭淞 Mar 05, 2021 09:34 AM (GMT+8)

The investment will mark QCraft's first bet in the automobile manufacturing business.

Automatic driving

The investment deal may be announced as early as next week – according to people familiar with the matter. At the same time, the financing scale is said to be at about USD 25 million, with investors including Lenovo and IDG Capital. 

QCraft was officially established in March 2019 in Silicon Valley. The company is committed to creating L4 autonomous driving technology to adapt to the complex urban traffic environment. At present, its core team includes members are from Waymo, Tesla, Uber, Ford, NVIDIA, Facebook and other autonomous driving and technology companies.

Although it's not sure whether the firm will enter the automotive manufacturing industry. However, it is an indisputable fact that now ByteDance has become one of many domestic technology companies that have joined in the field of automatic driving.

In 2018, Tencent invested in a similar autonomous driving company, Momenta. 

Chrysler China launched China's self-driving car AutoX in April 2019. At present, the company has launched a pilotless vehicle test in China with Fiat Chrysler's Pacifica.

Meituan is another giant that has announced its entry into the industry, with an investment in self-driving firm Haomo Zhixing on February 26, 2021.