Autonomous trucking startup Inceptio Technology has completed a $188 million round of financing to help accelerate the mass production of its self-driving trucks, the company announced Feb. 28.
At the end of 2021, after three years of development, Inceptio and China’s leading OEMs started mass production of heavy-duty trucks with Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Level 3 autonomy. This means Inceptio’s automated driving system, “Xuanyuan,” can drive the vehicle instead of the driver in a number of circumstances, but require a human driver to take control if the system demands.
These L3 trucks have already all been deployed to daily commercial operations on line-haul freight routes across China with a number of top industry shipping companies, Inceptio noted. The fact that mass-production of these L3 trucks is “front-loaded,” meaning that quality assurance was incorporated during the initial stages of development, could potentially significantly improving product quality, helping Inceptio to rapidly scale up.
“We have started a new chapter,” Julian Ma, the founder and CEO of Inceptio Technology, said in a statement. The goal of the L3 trucks is “to promote the large-scale growth of autonomous freight and to create more value to our customers.”
The Series B+ equity financing round was jointly led by Sequoia Capital China and Legend Capital. Co-investors included Chow Tai Fook Enterprises Limited, Cedarlake Capital, supply chain solution and finance provider Wuchan Zhongda Group, and an international equity fund. Existing investors such as Meituan, NIO Capital, Eight Roads and Broad Vision Funds also participated.
“Following its investments in autonomous driving of passenger vehicles, Legend Capital chooses the self-driving truck developer Inceptio Technology, and is very optimistic about its ‘technology and operation’ development strategy,” Lawrence Xue, the managing director of Legend Capital, said in a statement. “We think highly of Inceptio Technology’s excellent execution and will continue to mobilize industrial resources to promote its innovation and growth. It is believed that Inceptio Technology will become a pioneer with great influence in the industry.”
