Car stuff (public number: chedongxi)
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The autonomous driving circle has set off a financing boom!
Chedongshi April 13 news, automatic driving technology company Lingjun Technology has completed tens of millions of yuan PreA+ round of financing in January this year, this round of financing by a well-known logistics group strategic investment, Lingchuang Capital to participate in the investment, the old shareholder Zhenxin Capital additional investment.
Che Dongxi learned from Lingjun Technology that the funds raised in this round will be used to expand the technical team and promote the commercialization process of autonomous passenger transportation and freight transportation.
In fact, this is the third financing that the Lingjun Technology team has obtained in 12 months, and behind the repeated favor of capital is also the market's recognition of Lingjun Technology's deep cultivation in the field of autonomous driving. The person in charge of Lingjun Technology told Che Dong that the current A round of financing of Lingjun Technology is also continuing.
According to official information, Lingjun Technology was founded in 2016, the founder Yang Wenli is a master's degree in the Department of Automation of Tsinghua University, a doctorate from Pennsylvania State University, and later served as the chief architect of Western Digital, a senior R&D engineer of Baidu Deep Learning Research Institute, and the chief architect of Baidu's autonomous driving business unit.
As an autonomous driving company that started with technology, Lingjun Technology has been deeply engaged in the automatic driving industry for 6 years, and with the continuous maturity of technology, Lingjun Technology has also been continuously improving its business model. From the recent financing of Lingjun Technology, we can also see that this low-key autonomous driving company is really going to start working.
First, the introduction of heavyweight logistics industry shareholders will do passenger car track in the future
Che Dongxi noticed that in this round of financing, a well-known logistics group appeared. The person in charge of Lingjun Technology told Che Dongxi that the logistics group is also another heavyweight industrial shareholder introduced by Lingjun Technology after the horizon, and the three parties will form an active synergy in the field of urban logistics automatic driving.
In July 2017, Lingjun Technology obtained angel round financing led by Jiuhe Venture Capital and others; since April last year, it has continuously obtained 3 rounds of financing from Institutions and enterprises such as Ganzhou Industrial Investment and Horizon, which can be said that Lingjun Technology has gradually shown its value in the capital market.
▲The driverless bus of Lingjun Technology
Like other head autonomous driving technology companies, the core technology stack is an open road autonomous passenger car technology. CEO Yang Wenli told Che dong that in the second half of last year, the company has completed its strategic transformation and chosen the field of autonomous buses and urban logistics with a clearer commercialization scenario.
"Past technology accumulation and project experience can be quickly adapted to applications in autonomous buses and logistics vehicles." Yang Wenli said, "And the company's final game is still hoping to become the most shining pearl in the crown of the autonomous driving industry, and after the self-driving bus and urban logistics business matures, it will eventually return to the passenger car track." ”
Second, decision-making planning algorithm is the core advantage Commercialization will focus on urban passenger and cargo transportation
According to Yang Wenli, the decision-making planning algorithm is one of the core advantages of Lingjun Technology, the company at the beginning of its establishment has clarified the technical direction, relying on the team's experience advantages, the research and development will be concentrated on the brain of automatic driving (decision planning control system), self-developed based on the domestic commercial vehicle chassis map collection tools and scene simulation tools, and with the accumulation of decision-making planning algorithms and vehicle control, becoming one of the earliest companies in China to master the technical capabilities of independently passing through high and low speed toll stations and complex roundabouts.
▲The core technology of Lingjun Technology
"The technical framework of Lingjun Technology has been around the L2~L4 level full-stack automatic driving in the form of mass production, after several years of research and development precipitation, the technical level has basically met the requirements of mass production, and then the company's business model will focus on the two major scenarios of urban cargo and passenger carrying with relatively fixed lines." Yang Wenli said.
Yang Wenli told Che Dongxi that at present, there are three main business paths of Lingjun Technology in the field of autonomous buses and urban logistics:
First, as the main body of operation, it provides people and cargo transportation services, covering scenarios mainly including bus lines, shuttle bus connections, special line operations (close city-county, county-village), closed scenes (parks, parks, universities, etc.), RoboBus (development zones, cities with suitable population density, county seats), and autonomous transportation of goods for urban transportation;
Provide L4 level autonomous driving overall solution (turnkey project), customer scope includes bus groups, closed scenes (parks, parks, universities, hospitals, etc.), logistics companies, government demonstration projects, demonstration project connections, etc.;
Third, as Tier1/Tier2 to provide autonomous driving technology solutions, the customer range includes car manufacturers, such as Jinlong, Dongfeng, Kaiwo, FAW, Shaanxi Automobile, Geely, etc., as well as industry partners, including Horizon, Black Sesame, Qingzhi and so on.
According to the company, at present, Lingjun Technology has obtained the urban operation license for autonomous vehicles issued by the Ganzhou Municipal Government Development Zone, and the commercialization of Suzhou, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Xi'an and other cities is advancing in an orderly manner.
Conclusion: The commercialization of autonomous driving will continue to accelerate
In recent years, the automatic driving industry has become more and more lively, many new players have joined, and many old players like Lingjun Technology are also exploring how to achieve the commercialization of automatic driving.
Judging from the exploration of these autonomous driving companies, urban logistics, unmanned buses and other autonomous driving landing scenarios have made a lot of progress. It is believed that in the next stage, more autonomous driving commercialization scenarios will gradually land, and the commercialization process of the entire automatic driving industry is gradually accelerating.