Chinese autonomous driving startup MINIEYE completes D1 funding round

Chinese autonomous driving technology developer MINIEYE recently completed its Series D1 funding, which was led by CICC ALPHA and Dongfeng Asset Management Co. Ltd., and also involves such existing shareholders as Harvest Investments and Vision Plus Capital, the company announced on Tuesday via its WeChat account. The amount of the money raised is still yet to be unveiled.

In October 2020, the startup announced the completion of its C funding round with 270 million yuan ($41.801 million) nabbed. This financing round was supported by investors including Harvest Investments, Oriental Fortune Capital, Vision Plus Capital, Huaqin Technology, Shanshan Venture Capital, NavInfo, and KCH Capital Management Group.

Founded in 2014, MINIEYE is dedicated to providing AI-enabled sensing solutions for autonomous vehicles. It is working on customizing ADAS (advanced driver assistance system) solutions according to clients' demands. Based on real road analysis, MINIEYE's self-developed visual sensing system is able to precisely detect free space and various traffic objects, including vehicles, pedestrians, lanes, traffic lights and sighs. By combining neural-network -based visual sensing and sensor fusion, its in-cabin sensing technology is able to analyze the conditions and behaviors of passengers and drivers through monitoring eyelid, gazing direction, movement of head and body, and in-cabin objects.

MINIEYE has teamed up with such automakers as Dongfeng Motor, Geely Commercial Vehicles Group, SAIC Motor, BYD, JAC Group, Sinotruck, and Jiangxi Isuzu.

The money raised in the D1 funding round will be mainly used to strengthen MINIEYE's capabilities of technology development, volume production and cost control, Liu Guoqing, founder and CEO of the startup, said in response to a request from a local media. He also revealed MINIEYE delivered roughly 230,000 units of ADAS device in the first half of 2021, representing a 245% year-over-year hike.