Smart Driving Software Firm LinearX Bags Pre-A Round Financing

LinearX, a smart driving platform software company, announced on July 28 that it has completed a pre-A round of financing exceeding 100 million yuan ($14.82 million). The funding was led by Broad Vision Funds and Shenzhen Capital Group Co., Ltd. All three of the firm’s existing shareholders continued to invest, and Millennium Capital Partners acted as the exclusive financial advisor.

Since its establishment in August 2021, LinearX has been committed to building safe and real-time in-vehicle middle-tier platform software, realizing reliable data transmission of heterogeneous chips through self-developed dual communication middleware. LinearX has also actively cooperated with chip manufacturers and algorithm companies on product R&D and project implementation. The recently acquired capital will be used for talent investment, technology development, product optimization and market expansion.

Han Dong, the co-founder and president of LinearX, said: “At present, there is a lack of middleware that really supports Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) in the market. We believe that the so-called SOA requires middleware to support several common application interfaces. If the middleware software that a car manufacturer wants to use supports one interface standard, but the self-developed or outsourced algorithm application is based on another interface standard, the adaptation cost is close to redevelopment.”

LinearX reconstructs the underlying architecture, makes many innovations, and fully supports several mainstream interfaces at the beginning, and it is currently the middleware of the real SOA in China.

Ke Zhuliang, the co-founder and CEO of LinearX, said: “In the current context of frequent automated driving safety accidents and gradual implementation of Chinese safety laws and regulations, the move to higher levels of L3/L4 automated driving will be challenged by the higher reliability of system safety. How to fully release the computing power of high-performance chips on the basis of safety and reliability is the biggest value point of LinearX.”

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In July, the “Regulations on the Administration of Internet-connected Vehicles in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone” was released for the mass production of high-end autonomous vehicles. According to the forecast of GGII, the market size of ECU middleware related to intelligent driving in China will exceed 15 billion yuan ($2.2 billion) by 2025, with an average annual compound growth rate of about 35%.