Private equity major Affirma Capital has led the Series C+ funding for Chinese self-driving company Neolix Technologies Co., Ltd., which announced raising a total of 1 billion yuan ($140 million) in the extension round earlier this year.
Affirma Capital made the investment through its renminbi (RMB) fund, it said in a release on Wednesday.
Beijing-headquartered Neolix is amongst the largest autonomous driving company focusing on intra-city delivery vehicles, or `RoboVans’, targeting last-mile and middle-mile logistics and delivery applications.
Neolix raised the new financing from multiple logistics companies and financial investors, including CICC Capital, a unit of China International Capital Corp (CICC), the startup announced early this year.
The Series C+ funding comes as Neolix is on track to becoming the first Chinese company to deliver over 10,000 L4 commercial autonomous vehicles.
The transaction is expected to provide Neolix with both capital and strategic value to expand its commercial deployments, advance its autonomous driving technology, and scale its manufacturing footprint.
Gilbert Zeng, Founding Partner and Head of China at Affirma Capital, said “Leading this investment through our RMB fund demonstrates our strong conviction in Neolix and our ability to deploy local capital and values strategically to support high-growth champions in China.”
“Affirma’s deep local insights, combined with their international reach, will be invaluable as we execute our strategy to deepen our domestic leadership and accelerate our global footprints,” said Enyuan Yu, Founder and CEO of Neolix.
In March 2024, Neolix announced the completion of a Series C funding round of 600 million yuan ($83 million) to speed up R&D and nationwide product deliveries.
Neolix raised this financing from two CICC Capital subsidiaries; Qianhai Ark Asset Management, one of the country’s largest fund of funds (FOF) managers; and E-Town Capital, a state capital investor in Beijing. Shell Ventures, the British oil major Shell’s independently operating venture capital (VC) firm, also participated in the deal
Affirma Capital is the leading mid-market private equity firm and manages over US$4 billion of assets across Korea, India, Southeast Asia, China, Africa, and the Middle East.
Last month, Affirma Capital announced that it had acquired a 100% stake in CEK and other waste-to-energy (WtE) greenfield projects from Equis, a Singapore-based infrastructure developer, for $314 million (KRW 440 billion). CEK is reportedly the third-largest WtE operator in Korea and the largest in the southern region in terms of incineration capacity.
