China VC Weekly: Chips, Trucks, New Dairy
In last week’s China VC news: Chinese autonomous truck company Trunk Tech raises $30 million to develop next-generation technology, a slew of local chip makers complete fundraising rounds, and new dairy brand Adopt A Cow announced completion of a Series B round of financing.
Trunk Tech Raises Funds to Develop Next Generation of Self-Driving Trucks
Trunk Tech, a Chinese startup developing autonomous driving technology, has raised over $30 million from Yuexiu Industry Investment Fund, ZWC Partners and BHCP.
The company previously raised funds from investors, including RBVC, the venture capital division of Germany’s Bosch Group, during a Series A+ round in 2019.
About Trunk Tech
Founded in 2017, Trunk Tech provides Level 4 (‘L4’) autonomous driving technology, which enables vehicles to be fully self-driven under certain conditions, and transportation services for port and expressway logistics.
AI Chip Company Intengine Technology Wins Tens of Millions of Dollars in Financing
Chinese AI chip company Intengine Technology completed a new round of financing in which it raised tens of millions of dollars, led by investment institution ZY Capital. The proceeds will be mainly used for product R&D, expanding sales and marketing activities.
Intengine Technology has already completed several rounds of financing and is in a rapid growth stage. It has reached strategic cooperation with Chinese companies across industries including smartphones, home appliances and security.
About Intengine Technology
Founded in March 2017, Intengine Technology mainly develops AI chips and provides solutions for various Internet of Things (IoT) terminal devices based on its self-developed ‘Storage First Architecture’ (SFA). The company is registered in Beijing and has R&D bases in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hefei and the Silicon Valley in the U.S.
VastaiTech Completes $251 Million in B1 and B2 Rounds of Financing
VastaiTech, a high-end chip design unicorn, announced that its B1 and B2 rounds of financing have been completed, totaling 1.6 billion yuan ($251 million) and jointly led by Alibaba Group, Matrix Partners, PICC Venture Capital and 5Y Capital, followed by Mirae Asset, CoStone Capital, Redpoint China Ventures and others.
After this round of financing, VastaiTech will continue to improve its product matrix, including the large-scale landing of SV100 series products in domestic and foreign markets, increased investment in the R&D of graphics GPU products, and will begin to lay out other intelligent product lines.
About VastaiTech
VastaiTech was established in Shanghai in December 2018, focusing on the R&D of high-performance acceleration chips for a variety of deep learning reasoning categories. In addition, the firm provides heterogeneous computing performance with low latency for application scenarios such as computer vision, intelligent video processing and natural language processing.
Greatar Secures Round A+ Financing from Xiaomi Industrial Investment Management
Greatar, a Chinese supplier of AR diffraction optical waveguide and diffraction grating equipment, announced it had completed its round A+ of financing, which was exclusively led by electronics giant Xiaomi. This round of financing will be mainly used for the expansion of the company’s production line and team.
The firm had previously obtained strategic investment from OPPO. A few days ago, OPPO released its OPPO Air Glass, a mass-produced pair of AR intelligent glasses for individual customers. The diffractive optical waveguide lenses of this type of glasses were exclusively provided by the firm.
The company has secured Xiaomi’s strategic investment again, indicating that its products and technologies have been recognized by the two major smartphone makers in the country.
About Greatar
The company is an innovative enterprise that has adopted the IDM method in the field of diffraction optics and is mainly engaged in the R&D of AR diffraction optical waveguide and diffraction grating technology in addition to its production and sales.
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New Dairy Brand ‘Adopt A Cow’ Completes Round B Financing Led by Meituan Dragonball
Chinese new dairy brand Adopt A Cow announced its completion of a Series B round of financing, which was led by Meituan Dragonball and followed by new and existing shareholders such as DCP Capital, KKR and Gu Ming. The funds raised in this round will continue to be used for the construction of high-quality milk sources, modernized pastures and digital and intelligent industrial chains.
In April this year, Adopt A Cow completed its Series A round of financing, which was jointly led by KKR and DCP, and followed by Haibang Shuhu and Guanghe Investment.
About Adopt A Cow
Adopt A Cow is a membership-based dairy brand that supplies dairy products direct from origin. The company has now developed to cover the entire dairy industry chain and has integrated everything from production to distribution to sales.
Chinese Chip Designer Chipone Secures E Round of Financing Worth Over $1 Billion, Firm Valued at $4.7 Billion
Chinese display chip solutions provider Chipone Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. announced that it had completed its round E of financing, which exceeded 6.5 billion yuan ($1.02 billion) and lifted the company’s valuation to above 30 billion yuan ($4.7 billion).
Zhang Jinfang, CEO of Chipone, said that this round of financing will be used to enhance the company’s continuous investment in the R&D of technologies and talent recruitment, and to help the company establish long-term and sustainable capacity cooperation with core suppliers.
This round of financing is led by Oceanpine Capital, while other investors include industrial investment institutions such as Vivo and Unic Capital, as well as well-known institutions such as CCB Private Equity Investment Management, CDB Capital, Oriza Rivertown, GGV Capital and CGP Investment. Previous shareholders such as CPE, Singularity Power Investment Management, Silk Road Huachuang Investment Management, Zhuhai Huajin Capital also added funds.
About Chipone
Since its establishment in 2008, Chipone has been committed to the development of display chip technology. The company launched the first Chinese TDDI chip in 2018 and realized its mass production. In 2019, the first mini-LED display driver chip supporting as low as 0.4 mm pitch in China was launched by Chipone.
Marching Power Raises Over $78 Million in C Round of Financing
Marching Power, a Chinese power chip design company, recently completed a C round of financing exceeding 500 million yuan ($78.51 million). This round was led by CDH Investments, followed by BAIC Capital, Gaorong Capital, Beijing Singularity Power Investment Fund and Cash Capital. Index Capital served as the sole financial adviser.
The raised funds will be mainly used to further strengthen investment in the R&D of new energy vehicles and photovoltaic products, as well as to continuously improve its production capacity.
About Marching Power
Founded in 2017, the company has three product lines: the IGBT series, MOSFET series and module series. Its module packaging production line is capable of potting and plastic packaging, and its products mainly include potting modules for new energy vehicles, and industrial control fields and intelligent power modules (IPM) for home appliances.
Tungee Completes $47.14 Million in Round B+ Financing, Led by Cathay Capital Private Equity
Tungee, one of the leading companies in the fields of intelligent sales SaaS in China, announced the completion of a B+ round of financing valued at 300 million yuan ($47.14 million). Its lead investor was Cathay Capital Private Equity, and co-investors were GGV, in addition to all previous shareholders Sequoia China, Qiming Venture Partners and Unity Ventures.
Tungee said these funds would be used to invest in production and research, business expansion and service system upgrades while further promoting product R&D.
About Tungee
Founded in 2016, Tungee is positioned as an intelligent sales service provider. It offers universal SaaS products and related solutions, and is committed to using big data and AI to help enterprises improve sales efficiency and sales performance. It now has over 1,000 staff and has established branches all over China.
Cross-Border E-Commerce SaaS Service Provider Lingxing Secures $44 Million in Round C Financing
Lingxing, a cross-border e-commerce SaaS service provider, announced that it had completed a round C of financing worth 280 million yuan ($44 million), led by Xianghe Capital and followed by its previous shareholders such as Source Code Capital, GL Ventures, Shunwei Capital and Eastern Bell Capital. Taihe Capital served as the exclusive financial adviser.
About Lingxing
Founded in 2017, Lingxing is committed to creating value for the cross-border e-commerce industry through SaaS ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) products and making cross-border business easier. At present, the company has served more than 100,000 cross-border e-commerce enterprises, and its business grew by more than 200% in 2021.
