Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi announced on August 25 that it has acquired DeepMotion Tech Limited, a self-driving technology company, for a consideration of approximately $77.37 million.
DeepMotion was founded in July 2017 and is considered a company in the field of high precision mapping and positioning technology.
Its co-founder and CEO Rui Cai, CTO Zhiwei Li, Chief Scientist Kuiyuan Yang, and R&D Director Chi Zhang have all worked at Microsoft Research Asia.
In 2018, Cai Rui said in a media interview that DeepMotion used a vision-based multi-sensor fusion strategy.
At that time, its high-precision positioning technology could already achieve a positioning accuracy of 30 – 40cm front-to-back and 10 – 20cm left-to-right.
In terms of technology route, DeepMotion takes high precision map as the core, and integrates perception, positioning and composition modules at the algorithm level.
DeepMotion provides full-stack autonomous driving solutions, including technologies such as forward/round/perimeter vision perception systems and autonomous valet parking AVP solutions.
Auto-Bit, a WeChat account that follows the automotive industry, reported early last month that Xiaomi acquired DeepMotion, which will have up to 20+ people join Xiaomi‘s team.
This will help Xiaomi initially supplement its lineup of team leaders for various modules of self-driving technology, potentially laying the foundation for the development of self-driving technology for Xiaomi cars, the report said.
If the DeepMotion team and the Xiaomi self-driving team integrate smoothly, it can basically be inferred that Xiaomi self-driving will adopt a vision-based solution, the report said.
DeepMotion’s last public round of funding was a Series A round that closed in March 2018 for tens of millions of dollars. It is seeking funding in early 2020 at an expected valuation of $200 million.
(Photo source: DeepMotion)
