Shanghai (ZXZC)- Chinese autonomous driving startup Momenta announced on March 19 it has raised $500 million for its Series C funding, which is led by SAIC Motor, Toyota, Bosch, Temasek and YunFeng Capital. Other investors include Mercedes-Benz, GGV Capital, ShunWei Capital, Tencent and Cathay Capital.

Photo credit: Momenta

Upon completion of the new funding, Momenta will continue to promote the scale application of its autonomous driving technologies pivoting on the data-driven “Flywheel” technical route, said the company. Moreover, the startup will further expand its overseas business, planning to set up offices in Germany and Japan.

Meanwhile, Momenta officially announced the strategic cooperation with Toyota to provide the latter its automated HD mapping and updates through vision-based technologies. With this joint development, both companies aim to promote the commercialization of Toyota’s Automated Mapping Platform (AMP) in the China market to better serve Chinese customers.

According to public reports, Momenta has to-day completed six rounds of fundraising. Shortly after its foundation in 2016, it secured $5 million for Series A financing. In 2018, the company accomplished a round of strategic funding that bagged over $200 million.

SAIC Motor said it will deepen the strategic collaboration with Momenta to develop China's self-owned autonomous driving solution that targets the world's top level.

According to the Shanghai-based auto giant, the first model under “IM”, the smart BEV brand jointly developed by SAIC, Shanghai Pudong New Area and Alibaba Group, will adopt the technical solution from Momenta. The model will go on sale in 2022.