Autopilot company Jingchi raised $52 million, and Nvidia also voted

In September 2017, Jingchi Technology, a leading Chinese autonomous driving company, successfully closed its Pre-A funding round with $52 million. The round was led by Qiming Ventures, with Huachuang Capital and NVIDIA GPU Ventures also participating as major investors. Qi Mingping, a managing partner at Qiming, joined Jingchi’s board of directors, signaling strong confidence in the company’s future.

Founded in April 2017, Jingchi quickly made waves in the autonomous vehicle industry. Within just five weeks, the company completed its first closed-course autonomous test. By June 18, it became the 34th company to receive a California autonomous vehicle testing license. Just 81 days after its founding, on June 24, Jingchi conducted its first open-road autonomous test in Sunnyvale, California — a remarkable achievement for a startup.

On August 15, 2017, Jingchi signed an agreement with Anqing City in Anhui Province, planning to launch 50 autonomous vehicles for operational testing before the end of 2017. In 2018, the company aimed to deploy hundreds of NVIDIA DRIVE PX-equipped autonomous vehicles in the city, offering "robot taxi" services. This partnership marked a significant step toward real-world deployment of self-driving technology in China.

"We are committed to building an innovative smart mobility ecosystem that makes travel safer, more efficient, and more comfortable," said Jing Jin, founder and CEO of Jingchi. "Our goal is to achieve full autonomy by 2020 and become the first company in the world to scale autonomous technology for commercial use. This investment brings us closer to our vision."

Han Xu, co-founder and CTO of Jingchi, emphasized the importance of NVIDIA's DRIVE PX platform: "NVIDIA’s computing power significantly enhances the performance of our autonomous vehicles, making them safer and more reliable. We look forward to leveraging the full potential of DRIVE PX to bring self-driving services to China." With NVIDIA’s support, Jingchi aims to accelerate its R&D efforts and expand its capabilities in autonomous systems.

Qi Ziping, a managing partner at Qiming Ventures, expressed his belief in the future of AI and autonomous driving: "We’ve been closely following the development of these technologies, and we believe they will transform human life in the future. Jingchi’s team has impressed us, and we’re excited to support them from the beginning. Our goal is to help them become the first global company to bring autonomous driving to the mass market."

Jeff Herbst, vice president of business development at NVIDIA, added: "Artificial intelligence is reshaping the transportation industry. We are excited about Jingchi’s vision and their progress in developing deep learning-based autonomous systems. We fully support their work and look forward to continued collaboration."

Dong Lei, deputy mayor of Anqing City, highlighted the city’s commitment to innovation: "Anqing is accelerating its development and actively supporting strategic emerging industries. With the State Council’s New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, we are committed to helping Jingchi establish itself in Anqing and support its R&D and testing efforts. Together, we aim to build a demonstration city for autonomous vehicle operations."

Jingchi is a fast-growing autonomous driving company with offices in both China and the U.S. It currently employs over 50 people, with more than 80% being engineers. Many team members hold Ph.D.s from top universities such as Carnegie Mellon, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Stanford, and UC Berkeley. The core team includes experienced professionals from companies like Baidu, Shenzhou, Didi, Uber, and Tesla.

This article covers the recent $52 million funding round of Jingchi Technology, supported by NVIDIA and other key investors. For more updates on the latest developments in autonomous driving and car electronics, stay tuned to Electronic Engineering. We’ll keep you informed with detailed and up-to-date information.