Black Sesame Technologies receives investment from Bosch’s Boyuan Capital, further strengthening ongoing partnership
Black Sesame Technologies, a leading autonomous driving computing chip maker, recently received strategic investment from Bosch’s Boyuan Capital. With this investment, Black Sesame Technologies will strengthen its comprehensive partnership with Bosch in autonomous driving, whereby the two firms will jointly develop autonomous driving solutions and accelerate the commercialization of self-driving technologies.
Bosch has in recent years enhanced its research and investment in autonomous driving. Prior to this investment, Bosch has made investments in key players along the value chain of Chinese autonomous driving industry, including software platform vendor Momenta, LiDAR provider Hesai Technology, and commercial vehicle vendors UISEE and Trunk Tek. The investment in Black Sesame will further complete Bosch’s autonomous driving investment portfolio as the first autonomous driving chip maker. For Black Sesame Technologies, Bosch’s investment represents strong endorsement from the industry leader.
As early as 2018, Black Sesame Technologies, a two-year-old startup at the time, has signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation framework agreement with Bosch, under which two companies formed partnership across multiple sectors including smart city, smart home, connected vehicle and autonomous driving.
“Autonomous driving sector has entered an era of rapid growth of computing power, during which high-level autonomous driving technologies will become the core capability of smart vehicles in the future,” said Jiang Hongquan, Managing Partner and Chairman of Boyuan Capital, “L3/L4 autonomous driving demands high-performance, low power consumption, safe and reliable chips with high computing power as a core component. With the rapid growth of China’s smart vehicle industry over the past years, as well as the steadily increasing demand due to the automotive industry’s shortage of chips, high-performance automotive AI chips have great growth opportunities. Black Sesame Technologies provides an automotive-grade self-driving high performance computing platform. With its proprietary architecture, a flexible toolchain and an open ecosystem, Black Sesame Technologies is at a leading position in the industry. I’m very pleased to join the exciting journey as an investor of Black Sesame.”
“Black Sesame Technologies has always been committed to empowering the implementation of autonomous driving applications with its high-performance autonomous driving chips, for which an open ecosystem and cooperation are essential,” said Wilson Liu, co-founder and COO of Black Sesame Technologies. “Bosch has seasoned manufacturing experience and deep know-how in the automotive sector. The strategic investment by Bosch’s Boyuan Capital in Black Sesame Technologies marks a further step in our partnership. Looking forward, we plan to join force to create intelligent driving solutions, accelerate the application of intelligent driving technologies, and realize the vision of making autonomous driving a widely adopted mobility solution and making driving easier and smarter as early as possible.”
Boyuan Capital, founded in 2021, is an investment arm of Bosch focusing on China’s deep technology sector. The firm mainly invests in the sustainable transportation, smart manufacturing and IoT, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and carbon neutrality sectors, with the current focus on companies in the growth stage.
Black Sesame Technologies specializes in the development of high-tech solutions for chips and platforms with high computing power. The company has independently developed two core IPs, an auto-grade safety system, and auto-grade self-driving chips with high computing power for mass production. These products and solutions form the firm’s technology leadership.
In 2021, Black Sesame Technologies completed its Strategic and C rounds of financing, raising hundreds of millions of dollars, increasing and the company’s market value to nearly US$2 billion. Meanwhile, Black Sesame Technologies was ranked in recently released Hurun Global Unicorn List 2021. The success of latest funding round indicates that Black Sesame’s leading position in technology and product, and its high growth potential are widely recognized by industry leaders.
Leveraging Bosch’s global business network and R&D resources, Boyuan Capital aims to bring strategic value and industrial resources to China’s local high-tech sector, while Black Sesame Technologies, in its role as a leading developer of computing chips and platforms for autonomous driving, is committed to facilitating universal adoption of the new form of mobility. The two companies share the same vision of using their own advantages to empower relevant industries.
With the booming development of smart mobility, Black Sesame Technologies’ next step is to become a key player in the development and implementation of high-performance chips for autonomous driving. With the investment from Boyuan Capital, Black Sesame Technologies will work more closely with Bosch to create a safer, smarter and more comfortable travel experience for all.
