A new chapter has been added to the field of autonomous driving.
Text/Shanshan Xu
Less than a week after Great Wall Motor's Subsidiary Mimo Zhixing announced the completion of the A round of financing, there is good news in the field of autonomous driving.
On December 27, Shanghai Chasing Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chasing Technology"), a provider of domestic autonomous driving technology solutions, announced the completion of a round of financing of more than 100 million yuan, which was led by Yuanhe Puhua, followed by Guofang Capital, Weed Venture Capital, and additional investment by old shareholders Yunqi Capital and Zhongnan Venture Capital Fund.
It is reported that this round of financing will be used to achieve the mass production project of low-speed autonomous driving (AVP), while developing new business and product lines, including: promoting AVP technology to the application scenarios of pan-robots, and developing autonomous driving solutions that integrate travel and berth.
Founded in 2019, Chasing Technology is committed to the research and development of core software and solutions for autonomous driving. It is worth noting that its financing speed is almost "one round a year", only three months after its establishment, it has obtained tens of millions of yuan of angel round investment on the horizon, and in the Pre-A round of financing, investors have increased BAIC production and investment, Zhangjiang Science and Technology Venture Capital and other companies.
Screenshot from Sky Eye Check
In response to this round of financing, Yu Mengmeng, COO of Chasing Technology, said, "The core of the future car is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is software, the other is a chip, and the two should be strongly coupled. This is the fastest iteration of the future car, and it is also the strategic direction of the future of chasing technology. ”
Usually, there will be "communication barriers" between different chip platforms and software, how to improve the adaptability of software and its coupling with the chip, which is related to the final release of product performance.
In this regard, Chasing Technology pointed out to the "Daily Car Observation" that the main challenges faced by software cross-platform porting come from two aspects. One is whether the software architecture is universal and cross-platform portable. This requirement covers everything from algorithm modules to middleware software, without losing the certainty of software scheduling and the overall efficiency of software execution; the second is the vendor's versatility and control of performance in algorithm model design. In order to realize the cross-platform portability of the algorithm model, it is necessary to consider its versatility from the initial model design, and to do so as not to lose the accuracy of the model in the migration process.
The biggest advantage of Chasing Technology is that it has reliable software middleware and clearly designed software architecture polished by multiple mass production projects, and has completely decoupled the software architecture and hardware platform. It is said that the algorithms and models independently developed by Chasing Technology can flexibly adapt to computing platforms with different computing powers, and at the same time have a good control over their model performance and accuracy.
Up to now, Chasing Technology has obtained 10+ mass production projects, successfully opened all the main flow production chips, and the mass production platform has been covered: TI, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Renesas, Huawei MDC, Horizon, etc.
At the beginning of this month, Chase announced that it had obtained a mass production order of 400,000 sets + from a domestic head car manufacturer, which is also the largest mass production project and benchmark project for low-speed autonomous driving in China.
Looking forward to 2022, Chasing Technology will continue to expand its advantages in low-speed autonomous driving products, consolidate and expand its leading position in low-speed products, and copy the existing mature technology to the pan-machine scenario. At the same time, the driving function of high-speed automatic driving in the city is laid out, and the driving + parking integration solution is completed. According to reports, Chasing Technology has obtained the cooperation intention of a car company in the field of medium and high-speed automatic driving. It is expected that by 2030, Chase Technology will achieve full-scenario autonomous driving.
With the acceleration of the "new four modernizations" of the automotive industry, "software-defined vehicles" have gradually been recognized by the market. The industry predicts that automotive hardware solutions will gradually converge and eventually move towards generalization and standardization, and software will be the key to differentiating cars.
Whether it is the entry of capital or the frequent financing news, it shows that the era of autonomous driving technology is coming.