Innovusion, a global leader in image-grade LiDAR, has completed a $64 million Series B funding round.
Committed to delivering safer, smarter, and more efficient transportation and mobility.
Innovusion recently completed a $64 million Series B funding round led by Temasek, BAI Capital, and Joy Capital, with participation from existing shareholders NIO Capital, Eight Roads, and F Prime. Gaorong Ventures had led Innovusion's angel round in 2016 and also took part in its subsequent Series A.
As a global leader in image-grade LiDAR, Innovusion is fully committed to enabling safer, smarter, and more efficient mobility and transportation.
Innovusion boasts leading R&D capabilities, exceptional safety assurance, and controllable costs. Its products are widely deployed across autonomous driving, smart cities, smart highways, and rail transit, earning the trust and partnership of organizations and benchmark enterprises worldwide.
Junwei Bao, co-founder and CEO of Innovusion, stated that following this round, "we will continue to increase investment in our R&D centers in Silicon Valley and China, while also strongly supporting our supply chain partners to jointly build a world-leading mass production supply chain system for high-performance LiDAR."
On the outlook for LiDAR in the autonomous driving pre-installation market, Bao noted, "According to Yole's report, the LiDAR market in autonomous driving will reach $1.7 billion by 2025." He added, "Furthermore, encouraged by relevant national policies, LiDAR will also see tremendous growth potential in the roadside equipment market for intelligent connected vehicles."
The partnership with NIO exemplifies Innovusion's LiDAR application in autonomous driving. This January, NIO unveiled its first smart electric sedan, the ET7. Scheduled for delivery in Q1 2022, the vehicle features an image-grade ultra-long-range LiDAR co-developed by Innovusion and NIO, offering a 120-degree ultra-wide field of view and ultra-high resolution with a maximum detection range of 500 meters. Innovusion's proprietary "Falcon Gaze" function can generate high-density point clouds in localized areas of the field of view to obtain more precise 3D information, enabling better tracking of vehicles and pedestrians and improving the reliability and safety of autonomous driving. As a global leader in mass-producible LiDAR, Innovusion is well prepared for the continued evolution of NIO's full-stack NAD autonomous driving technology.
Innovusion's LiDAR comes standard in NIO ET7's autonomous driving super-sensing system
Innovusion's high-definition long-range LiDAR is also playing an important role in advancing the coordinated development of intelligent connected vehicles and smart cities. In Xiong'an New Area, a model smart city, Innovusion was among the first batch of high-tech enterprises to establish operations at the Xiong'an Zhi Hui Wei Lai Science and Technology Park. The company is also a key partner in Baidu's Apollo ecosystem, with its image-grade long-range LiDAR successfully deployed in Baidu Apollo intelligent transportation city projects in Beijing, Changsha, Cangzhou, and other locations.
Junwei Bao, co-founder and CEO of Innovusion, graduated from the Department of Physics at Peking University and holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley. He previously joined Baidu's autonomous driving division, where he led the onboard computing systems and sensor team, making outstanding contributions to defining LiDAR's technology roadmap. In November 2016, Bao co-founded Innovusion with partners to focus on LiDAR. He believes: "LiDAR is the core technology for achieving autonomous driving — it's essentially the 'eyes' of autonomous driving. We build our perception system around this core. Seeing farther and clearer will be our product's core competitive advantage, and it will certainly be the ultimate need and greatest benefit for our customers."
Innovusion has established a core R&D team in Silicon Valley, with its China operations radiating across East, North, and South China from Suzhou High-Speed Rail New City, and its manufacturing center located in Wuhan's Auto Valley. The company possesses leading R&D capabilities, exceptional safety assurance, and controllable costs.
Its exceptional pool of high-tech talent is another notable strength. The company's founders and core R&D team members primarily hail from world-renowned universities including Peking University, Tsinghua University, MIT, and UC Berkeley, bringing deep industry experience and a dedicated focus on LiDAR exploration and innovation. Innovusion's professional team is expanding rapidly to better serve customers, adapt to robust market growth, and become a driving force in the continued advancement of autonomous driving and smart transportation.
