BEIJING -- Chinese autonomous driving startup Momenta said it has received $500 million from companies including Daimler, Toyota and Robert Bosch, as the global auto industry pursues the autonomous future.
Other investors in the funding round include SAIC, Temasek, Yunfeng Capital and Tencent, Momenta said in a statement. It did not disclose the valuation.
The four-year-old company, led by Cao Xudong, a former Microsoft executive, is testing autonomous cars in Beijing and China's eastern city of Suzhou, and has a research center in Stuttgart.
Momenta is working with automakers to develop mass-production vehicles with automated driving functions to gather real-time data for the fully autonomous driving technologies for future products. Data is a key part of the self-driving industry which enables companies to improve their technologies in different environments.
Momenta will expand its workforce and gather more data to improve future technologies, it said.
Toyota last year partnered with Momenta to develop a high definition (HD) mapping platform in China for autonomous driving vehicles, a key to allowing such vehicles to locate themselves.
Shanghai-based SAIC is China's biggest automaker, which has partnerships with Volkswagen Group and General Motors. On Thursday it said would partner with U.S. lidar maker Luminar Technologies to develop automated driving systems.
Automakers and technology companies are investing billions of dollars in automated driving, aiming to take an early lead in what many consider the future of road transport, though some industry insiders say it will take time for the public to fully place their trust in these vehicles.
