A Chinese challenger to Nuro has raised some seed funding to advance its ambitions in the US.
David Chang, the founder of Whale Dynamic, says the startup has closed a seed round of about $2.5 million. The round was led by a Beijing-based investment firm managed by veterans from China's leading financial institutions.
Whale Dynamic is a start-up that is trying to develop Nuro-like delivery vans that do away with the steering wheel and driver's seat. It contracts a Chinese manufacturer to make its self-driving vehicles, but the name of which cannot be revealed yet as the deal has not been finalized.
Chang, who worked as a product manager in the intelligent driving group, believes that Whale Dynamic has a slight edge over Nuro because of costs. The complete production of Whale Dynamic's vehicles, from manufacturing to assembling, happens in China, which gives it a price advantage over its American counterpart. Each vehicle is priced at $20,000.
Whale Dynamic will be able to expand its team of 30 employees and explore product use cases in China and the US thanks to the latest financial injection. The company aims to have its first prototype car testing in some Chinese cities in May.
In China, Whale Dynamic is facing competition from retail tech giants, which started testing their own goods-only delivery vehicles last year. Chang believes that his company's technology, which takes the slower and more costly route of conducting R&D and testing on passenger cars rather than building the boxes-on-wheels directly, can better stand the test of time.
The fleet is being tested using passenger cars.
Chang wants to base his firm in the US and target express delivery services and supermarkets there.
As regulators from China and the US increase scrutiny over tech companies for potential national security risks, businesses that straddle the two countries will have to pick sides. TuSimple is looking to sell its China unit, which is backed by a Chinese social media giant.
The majority of TuSimple's vehicles are in the US with a smaller fleet in China. TuSimple decided to sell its China unit after US regulators voiced concerns over the firm's Chinese background and access to data.
Chang says security compliance is a priority at Whale Dynamic. When it enters the US market, the startup will use US cloud services like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, but its China team will take care of hardware development. The company's key suppliers are American, such as Oster for lidar, and Israel-based Innoviz, which has offices in the US. Unlike Nuro, which operates its own fleets, Whale Dynamic will only offer ready-to-use vehicles and software-as-a-service, leaving the operational part to its clients, which should limit the amount of sensitive data the startup can glean.
JD.com, Meituan and Neolix to test autonomous deliveries on Beijing public roads
All Rights Reserved © 2024
