Transportation

SoftBank led $500M investment in Didi in China’s biggest autonomous driving round

Comment

Image Credits: Didi

The race to automate vehicles on China’s roads is heating up. Didi, the Uber of China, announced on Friday an outsized investment of over $500 million in its freshly minted autonomous driving subsidiary. Leading the round — the single largest fundraising round in China’s autonomous driving sector — is its existing investor Softbank, the Japanese telecom giant and startup benefactor that has also backed Uber.

The proceeds came through SoftBank’s second Vision Fund, which was reportedly lagging in fundraising as its Fund I recorded massive losses in part due to the collapsing valuation of WeWork.

As China’s largest ride-hailing provider with mountains of traffic data, Didi clearly has an upper hand in developing robotaxis, which could help address driver shortages in the long term. But it was relatively late to the field. In 2018, Didi ranked eighth in kilometers of autonomous driving tests carried out in Beijing, far behind search giant Baidu, which accounted for over 90% of the total mileage that year.

It’s since played aggressive catchup. Last August, it spun off its then three-year-old autonomous driving unit into an independent company to focus on R&D, building partnerships along the value chain and promoting the futuristic technology to the government. The team now has a staff of 200 across its China and U.S. offices.

As an industry observer told me, “robotaxis will become a reality only when you have the necessary operational skills, technology and government support all in place.”

Didi is most famous for its operational efficiency, as facilitating safe and pleasant rides between drivers and passengers is no small feat. The company’s leadership hails from Alibaba’s legendary business-to-business sales team, also known as the “Alibaba Iron Army” for its ability in on-the-ground operation.

On the tech front, the subsidiary is headed by chief executive Zhang Bo, a Baidu veteran, and chief technology officer Wei Junqing, who joined last year from self-driving software company Aptiv.

The autonomous segment can also benefit from Didi’s all-encompassing reach in the mobility industry. For instance, it’s working to leverage the parent company’s smart charging networks, fleet maintenance service and insurance programs for autonomous fleets.

The fresh capital will enable Didi’s autonomous business to improve safety — an area that became a focal point of the company after two deadly accidents — and efficiency through conducting R&D and road tests. The financing will also allow it to deepen industry cooperation and accelerate the deployment of robotaxi services in China and abroad.

Over the years, Didi has turned to traditional carmakers for synergies in what it dubs the “D-Alliance,” which counts more than 31 partners. It has applied autonomous driving technology to vehicles from Lincoln, Nissan, Volvo, and BYD, to name a few.

Didi has secured open-road testing licenses in three major cities in China, as well as California. It said last August that it aimed to begin picking up ride-hailing passengers with autonomous cars in Shanghai in a few months’ time. It’s accumulated 300,000 kilometers of road tests in China and the U.S. as of last August.

The headline of this article was corrected on May 29, 2020.

More TechCrunch

When it comes to the world of venture-backed startups, some issues are universal, and some are very dependent on where the startups and its backers are located. It’s something we…

The ups and downs of investing in Europe, with VCs Saul Klein and Raluca Ragab

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. OpenAI announced this week that…

Scarlett Johansson brought receipts to the OpenAI controversy

Accurate weather forecasts are critical to industries like agriculture, and they’re also important to help prevent and mitigate harm from inclement weather events or natural disasters. But getting forecasts right…

Deal Dive: Can blockchain make weather forecasts better? WeatherXM thinks so

pcTattletale’s website was briefly defaced and contained links containing files from the spyware maker’s servers, before going offline.

Spyware app pcTattletale was hacked and its website defaced

Featured Article

Synapse, backed by a16z, has collapsed, and 10 million consumers could be hurt

Synapse’s bankruptcy shows just how treacherous things are for the often-interdependent fintech world when one key player hits trouble. 

19 hours ago
Synapse, backed by a16z, has collapsed, and 10 million consumers could be hurt

Sarah Myers West, profiled as part of TechCrunch’s Women in AI series, is managing director at the AI Now institute.

Women in AI: Sarah Myers West says we should ask, ‘Why build AI at all?’

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world…

This Week in AI: OpenAI and publishers are partners of convenience

Evan, a high school sophomore from Houston, was stuck on a calculus problem. He pulled up Answer AI on his iPhone, snapped a photo of the problem from his Advanced…

AI tutors are quietly changing how kids in the US study, and the leading apps are from China

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Well,…

Startups Weekly: Drama at Techstars. Drama in AI. Drama everywhere.

Last year’s investor dreams of a strong 2024 IPO pipeline have faded, if not fully disappeared, as we approach the halfway point of the year. 2024 delivered four venture-backed tech…

From Plaid to Figma, here are the startups that are likely — or definitely — not having IPOs this year

Federal safety regulators have discovered nine more incidents that raise questions about the safety of Waymo’s self-driving vehicles operating in Phoenix and San Francisco.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration…

Feds add nine more incidents to Waymo robotaxi investigation

Terra One’s pitch deck has a few wins, but also a few misses. Here’s how to fix that.

Pitch Deck Teardown: Terra One’s $7.5M Seed deck

Chinasa T. Okolo researches AI policy and governance in the Global South.

Women in AI: Chinasa T. Okolo researches AI’s impact on the Global South

TechCrunch Disrupt takes place on October 28–30 in San Francisco. While the event is a few months away, the deadline to secure your early-bird tickets and save up to $800…

Disrupt 2024 early-bird tickets fly away next Friday

Another week, and another round of crazy cash injections and valuations emerged from the AI realm. DeepL, an AI language translation startup, raised $300 million on a $2 billion valuation;…

Big tech companies are plowing money into AI startups, which could help them dodge antitrust concerns

If raised, this new fund, the firm’s third, would be its largest to date.

Harlem Capital is raising a $150 million fund

About half a million patients have been notified so far, but the number of affected individuals is likely far higher.

US pharma giant Cencora says Americans’ health information stolen in data breach

Attention, tech enthusiasts and startup supporters! The final countdown is here: Today is the last day to cast your vote for the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice program. Voting closes…

Last day to vote for TC Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice program

Featured Article

Signal’s Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash and the ‘edge lords’ at OpenAI 

Among other things, Whittaker is concerned about the concentration of power in the five main social media platforms.

2 days ago
Signal’s Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash and the ‘edge lords’ at OpenAI 

Lucid Motors is laying off about 400 employees, or roughly 6% of its workforce, as part of a restructuring ahead of the launch of its first electric SUV later this…

Lucid Motors slashes 400 jobs ahead of crucial SUV launch

Google is investing nearly $350 million in Flipkart, becoming the latest high-profile name to back the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce startup. The Android-maker will also provide Flipkart with cloud offerings as…

Google invests $350 million in Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart

A Jio Financial unit plans to purchase customer premises equipment and telecom gear worth $4.32 billion from Reliance Retail.

Jio Financial unit to buy $4.32B of telecom gear from Reliance Retail

Foursquare, the location-focused outfit that in 2020 merged with Factual, another location-focused outfit, is joining the parade of companies to make cuts to one of its biggest cost centers –…

Foursquare just laid off 105 employees

“Running with scissors is a cardio exercise that can increase your heart rate and require concentration and focus,” says Google’s new AI search feature. “Some say it can also improve…

Using memes, social media users have become red teams for half-baked AI features

The European Space Agency selected two companies on Wednesday to advance designs of a cargo spacecraft that could establish the continent’s first sovereign access to space.  The two awardees, major…

ESA prepares for the post-ISS era, selects The Exploration Company, Thales Alenia to develop cargo spacecraft

Expressable is a platform that offers one-on-one virtual sessions with speech language pathologists.

Expressable brings speech therapy into the home

The French Secretary of State for the Digital Economy as of this year, Marina Ferrari, revealed this year’s laureates during VivaTech week in Paris. According to its promoters, this fifth…

The biggest French startups in 2024 according to the French government

Spotify is notifying customers who purchased its Car Thing product that the devices will stop working after December 9, 2024. The company discontinued the device back in July 2022, but…

Spotify to shut off Car Thing for good, leading users to demand refunds

Elon Musk’s X is preparing to make “likes” private on the social network, in a change that could potentially confuse users over the difference between something they’ve favorited and something…

X should bring back stars, not hide ‘likes’

The FCC has proposed a $6 million fine for the scammer who used voice-cloning tech to impersonate President Biden in a series of illegal robocalls during a New Hampshire primary…

$6M fine for robocaller who used AI to clone Biden’s voice