MINIEYE, a Chinese company that focuses on the development of sensing systems for autonomous driving, announced the completion of its Series C financing, thus receiving a total amount of a 270 million RMB capital injection. This round of investment was presided by Harvest Fund, Oriental Fortune Capital, VISION+ CAPITAL, and original investor NavInfo.
MINIEYE aims to implement artificial intelligence to provide reliable sensing and decision-making solutions for autonomous driving. The Chinese company focuses on improving the automation degree and, at the same time, reducing the accident rate and guaranteeing the safety of drivers and passengers.
From the beginning, MINIEYE has committed to developing autonomous driving technology and products that can be mass-produced. In 2018, MINIEYE received the approval of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and achieved mass production in the factory-installed market. Currently, providing products from phase L0 to phase L3, MINIEYE serves over 20 clients including GM, Ford, SAIC, BYD, Dongfeng, SINOTRUK, JAC, JMC, etc.
MINIEYE’s CEO, Dr. Liu Guoqing, announced that the Series C financing will be first of all used to help relieve the pressure on the supply chain caused by mass delivery and to increase the cash reserve. In this way, Dr. Liu hopes to meet the procurement demands of the OEM in a timely manner. At the same time, the financing will also allow the company to keep investing in research and development of advanced autonomous driving technologies, maintaining a competitive advantage with their technology and products.
According to Dr. Liu, from a technical point of view, autonomous driving technology can only be improved if utilized on a larger scale: Through the continuous collection of large amounts of data, enterprises are able to establish barriers, which in turn help iterative algorithms, improve testing efficiency, and allows for the continuous progress of technology.
MINIEYE is currently offering a range of products for both before and after markets, hence providing a rich source of data. Utilizing data for research and development is extremely important for autonomous driving’s technology model, and, at the same time, it can also generate new business models.
Dr. Liu Guoqing also introduced a case study on MINIEYE’s implementation of data analytics. MINIEYE helps its strategic investor NavInfo to update the data source of high-precision map applications, safeguarding the “up-datedness” advantage of NavInfo’s high-precision map.
Also worth mentioning is that MINIEYE has witnessed a stable and significant increase in income stemming from its data analytics business.
