EV startup WMMotor receives funding from group led by Baidu Capital
WM Motor
Founder: Shen Hui
Founded in: 2014
Financing status: Undisclosed financing round in 2017
EV startup, WM Motor, received funding from a group led by Baidu Capital on December 5 to accelerate its production of new EV.
WM Motor is an EV (Electric Vehicle) startup dedicated to providing consumers with a convenient and vastly improved mobility experience based on its EV industry chain, including manufacturing electric vehicles with advanced technology, mobility service, “WM Charging Service” app, and so on.
According to the CEO, Shen, all of WM Motor’s electric cars are due to reach the Chinese market next year. They aim to launch cars to rival Tesla’s first mass-market car, the Model 3 sedan. The company plans to start taking orders for its first vehicle, an all-electric battery sport-utility vehicle (SUV). Small-scale production of the SUV is slated to start in the first quarter of next year at its assembly plant in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou. The plant has an eventual annual capacity of 100,000 vehicles.
Founded in 2014 in Suzhou, WM Motor’s team has reached 1000 members, and has location in Germany, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, and Wenzhou. It also launched plans to support partners in WM’s upstream and downstream value chains to build a joint smart mobility ecosystem. In September this year, WM Motor announced that it will work with Hellobike to build a smart mobility ecosystem. In October, WM Motor signed an agreement with Mobileye to cooperate in the autonomous driving sector. This month, the company says it will work with NetEase to introduce big data, Internet technology, and more to facilitate its technical sectors.
This financing round was from a group of investors led by Baidu Capital, a unit of Chinese internet search firm Baidu Inc. The capital will be used to accelerate the production of electric vehicles, as well as further invest in technical sectors.
VR startup 51wofang receives USD 32M for Series B
51wofang
Founder: Li Yi
Founded in: 2015
Financing status: RMB 210 million (USD 32 million) for Series B financing in 2017
VR startup, 51wofang, received USD 32 million for Series B on December 5 to recruit more professionals to expand its team.
51wofang is a VR (Virtual Reality) startup that provides cutting-edge visualization technologies to developers in China and North America. It mainly specializes in 3D simulation reconstruction for the real estate industry, and is gradually expanding its service range to car trading, education, and the gaming industry. Its features include immersive experiences within a showroom, furniture customizations, dollhouse views, and sand tables for indoor cases, as well as features integrating AI Sales Assistance that provides intellectual and informational conversations with customers for outdoor cases.
Founded in 2015 in Beijing, it serves more than 350 enterprises from China and overseas, including Vanke, Country Garden, BMW, JQZ Group, China Mobile, and so on. The company set up development centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, SiliconValley, London, and Frankfurt.
This Series B financing round was led by Modernland and SenseTime, with Star VC, Lightspeed China Partners, Green Living Equity Investment Fund, Green Pine Capital Partners, and SPD Silicon Valley Bank participating as investors. The company plans to use the funds to recruit more talent that specializes in computer graphics, machine vision, and deep learning. It will invest in the research and development of autonomous driving, as well as accelerate the innovation of VR and AR technology to make it applicable to more cases.
（Top photo from wm-motor.com）
