Chinese Autonomous Driving Tech Startup Raises $1 Billion

Momenta, a Beijing-based startup specializing in autonomous vehicle software, says it has secured more than $1 billion in its latest funding round.

Existing investors NIO Capital and Pagoda Investment led the funding. Other participants included Chinese social media giant Tencent Holdings, government funds from Shanghai and Suzhou, China Merchants Group and CCB International.

Momenta, which was formed two years ago by former Microsoft Corp. software engineers, previously had raised about $200 million.

The company recently received permission to test self-driving vehicles in Shanghai and Suzhou. Momenta says it will deploy a “large-scale” test fleet equipped with its Level 4 autonomous driving system in Suzhou.

The Level 4 system integrates information from camera, millimeter-wave radar and lidar sensors to track nearby objects and a vehicle’s position relative to its surroundings. Using internally developed deep-learning software, HD mapping and big data computing, Momenta’s platform processes information from the sensors to assess traffic conditions and predict behavior.

In addition to its Level 4 technology, Momenta is developing robotic valet parking technology and an advanced-driver-assist system for fleet applications.