Hillhouse Capital, Xiaomi and Meituan Back Lidar Maker Hesai's Series D Round

 Hesai Photonics Technology, a global leader in three-dimensional sensors and light detection and ranging announced the completion of a USD 300 million Series D round today on June 8, 2021. The investment was backed by Hillhouse Capital, Xiaomi, Meituan, CPE Yuanfeng and old shareholders such as Lightspeed Capital and Qiming Venture Partners.

According to the firm, the financing fund will be used to support the large-scale mass production delivery of hybrid solid-state lidar for front-end mass production, the construction of its intelligent manufacturing center, and the research and development of high-performance lidar chips.

Data from Tianyancha shows that, to date, the lidar producer has completed a total of eight rounds of financing, and the investors include giants such as Bosch Group, Baidu, Xiaomi and Meituan.

It is also worth mentioning that Hesai submitted a prospectus to list on the Nasdaq-like Star Market on Jan. 7, with a plan to raise CNY 2 billion. The company said CNY1.2 billion would be used to build a smart manufacturing center, CNY 650 million would go toward Lidar chips, and the rest would be spent on developing algorithms but on March 12 2021 the firm's listing sponsor Huatai United Securities announced the suspension of the IPO for unknown reasons.