China VC Weekly: Agricultural Robots and Lightspeed’s Largest Fundraising in History
In last week’s VC news, one of China’s most active VCs Lightspeed China Partners closes the largest fundraising round in its history, agricultural robot startup FJDynamics, founded by a former DJI chief scientist, raises $70 million in Series B round, and more.
D2C solutions provider Fastlane Technology raises $10 million from Baidu and others
Fastlane Technology, a global direct-to-consumer (D2C) solutions provider, announced its securing of Series A funding totaling nearly $10 million in investment capital led by Baidu Ventures and South-Korea based LB Investment.
The firm’s annual growth rate from 2018 to 2020 was more than 500%, and the GMV in 2020 exceeded $100 million.
About Fastlane Technology
Established in 2018, Fastlane is a full-service D2C solutions provider for brands looking to expand overseas through cross-border e-commerce and locally. It is committed to providing brand strategy, marketing communications, official website development, digital operations, order fulfillment, business localization and other services that facilitate the global expansion of innovative brands.
GPU company Moore Threads rakes in whopping 2 billion yuan in Series A round
Moore Threads, a Chinese graphics processing unit (GPU) enterprise, announced on Thursday that it had completed a Series A round of financing in which it raised 2 billion yuan ($313 million).
This round was jointly led by Shanghai Guosheng Group, 5Y Capital and Bohai Sheng (Hubei) Industrial Fund Management, and also participated in by nine institutions including CCB International, China Merchants Securities and Hubei Hongtai High-Quality Development Fund.
The funds raised this time will be spent on the mass production and manufacturing of GPU chips, research and development related to GPU SOC (System on Chip) intellectual properties, and the expansion of a China-made GPU ecosystem.
About Moore Threads
Moore Threads was established in October 2020 and is committed to building a computing platform for visual computing and AI computing. The company provides self-developed innovative intellectual property GPUs and is helping China to establish a domestic high-performance computing ecosystem.
Prominent China VC Lightspeed China Partners closes largest fundraising round in its history
Lightspeed China Partners, the China-focused branch of prominent investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, announced that it has closed the largest fundraising round in its history. The new cash come roughly three years after its last fundraising in early 2019.
The raised capital was divided between two funds: Lightspeed China Partners V with $460 million dedicated to early-stage startups and Lightspeed China Partners Select II with $460 million going towards growth-stage opportunities. Both funds will reportedly be seeking investments in green tech, deep tech, enterprise tech, health tech and consumer tech.
About Lightspeed Venture Partners
Founded in 1999 and rooted in the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem, the fund has its footprint in various markets including Israel, India, Europe, Southeast Asia and China, where it began investing in 2006. In the past five years, the firm was involved in a number of notable IPOs, including those of the e-commerce giants Pinduoduo and Meituan, freight matching platform Full Truck Alliance, and electric vehicle startup Xpeng.
Agricultural robot startup FJDynamics raises $70 million in Series B round
Agricultural robot startup FJDynamics closed a Series B round of $70 million that will be used to advance its goal of empowering workers in the harshest environment with robotic technologies.
FJDynamics has so far attracted injections from a rank of heavyweight investors, including Tencent, Dongfeng Asset Management, a fund under the prominent Chinese automaker. DJI also had a stake in the company early on but has since sold off its shares.
The company declined to name its sole investor in the latest Series B round and only said it is a major internet firm in China. The funding will allow the company to “grow its suite of robotics automation technology across agriculture, facility management, construction and gardening, along with supporting the increasing demand of the company’s ESG product offerings in over 60 countries,” according to the company.
About FJDynamics
Founded in 2017 by former DJI chief scientist James Wu, FJ Dynamics deploys artificial intelligence and big data analytics to provide robotic and other ‘unmanned’ tech solutions for the agriculture, animal husbandry, fishery and forestry industries, as well as construction and manufacturing more broadly. Its products include driverless tractors, autonomous heavy goods vehicles and robot rice transplanters.
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