Momenta raises $500 million in latest fundraising round

Chinese startup Momenta said on Friday that it has finished the latest round of financing totaling $500 million, which is so far the largest investment in China's autonomous driving sector.

Momenta aid the investment was led by Toyota, Bosch as well as China's largest carmaker SAIC Motor. Other investors included Mercedes-Benz and Chinese tech company Tencent.

Cao Xudong, CEO of Momenta, said: "This round of financing marks an important new milestone for the company on the path to integrating our technology on vehicles worldwide. "

Founded in 2016, Momenta unveiled its robotaxi vehicles last year. It plans to conduct driverless tests in 2022 and expects the business to become profitable in 2024.

"Ever since the early days of establishment, the company has pursued a very strongly data-driven approach to autonomous driving. In the past years, our focused strategy has enabled us to create products which have been widely recognized by our customers across the automotive industry," said Cao.

Autonomous driving is gaining traction in China. Another Chinese startup Pony.ai raised $462 million in February, raising its valuation to exceed $3 billion.

Earlier this week, Baidu said it has received qualifications from Cangzhou, Hebei province, to charge to charge the passengers for autonomous driving taxi services.

Cangzhou is the first city in China to announce policies that allow robotaxi companies to charge passengers, which Baidu said is "a landmark" in the technology's development in the country.

Consulting firm Mckinsey said China has the potential to become the world's largest market for autonomous vehicles.

"In China, we believe fully autonomous vehicles will see mass deployment in nine or 10 years," said analysts at the company in a research note last year.

It expected such vehicles could account for as much as 66 percent of the passenger-kilometers traveled in 2040, generating market revenue of $1.1 trillion from mobility services and $0.9 trillion from sales of autonomous vehicles by that year.