Inceptio Technology, an Nio-backed provider of self-driving truck technology, announced Tuesday the closing of a $270 million Series B financing round.
The round was co-led by JD Logistic, Meituan, and PAG, with participation from Nio's venture capital arm Nio Capital, Deppon Express, IDG, CMB International, SDIC, Mirae Asset, Eight Roads, and Bohua Capital.
With this round of funding, Inceptio will further invest in its self-developed truck self-driving system, "Xuanyuan," and accelerate its presence in the electrification space, the company said.
Inceptio was founded in April 2018 by IoT platform G7, GLP, and Nio Capital, with a business focus on autonomous driving for logistics operations.
Starting in 2019, Inceptio is jointly developing mass-production models of self-driving heavy trucks with leading Chinese OEMs.
Last November, Inceptio announced the completion of a $120 million equity financing led by CATL and followed by original shareholders including GLP, G7, and Nio Capital.
In March, Inceptio launched its self-driving system "Xuanyuan".
The two L3 heavy-duty truck models jointly developed by Inceptio, Dongfeng Motor Commercial Vehicle and China National Heavy Duty Truck Group Co, respectively, will be equipped with the Xuanyuan self-driving system and are scheduled for mass production by the end of 2021.
The Xuanyuan system uses the ultra-long-range sensing algorithm ULRS (Ultra Long Range Sensing), which combines scene depth perception technology and foreground vehicle resolution technology to achieve ultra-long-range 3D perception of 1,000 meters with error control of less than 5 percent.
With the Adaptive Robust Control algorithm (ARC), it is possible to keep the vehicle lateral control error within 10 cm under different load and road conditions through body transient control and indirect trailer attitude control, according to the company.
(Photo source: Inceptio Technology)
