Jidu completed nearly $400 million series A financing and will mass-produce and deliver the car in 2023

On January 26, Baidu's auto company Jidu announced that it has completed nearly $400 million in Series A financing, which was jointly increased by Baidu and strategic partner Geely. After the financing is completed, Jidu will continue to accelerate the process of research and development and mass production.

In June 2021, Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu, said in an interview that the company will launch its first round of financing in the third quarter, and in January 2022, the financing will be completed.

In January 2021, Baidu announced that it would build a car and join hands with Geely Holdings to form a smart car company. Jidu was officially established on March 2, 2021, with a start-up capital of US$300 million when it was established. Jidu plans to form a team of 2,000 to 3,000 people by the end of 2022. The company has a registered capital of 2 billion yuan, and Baidu indirectly holds 55% of the shares of Jidu Automobile, which is the controlling shareholder; Shanghai Huapu Automobile, a subsidiary of Geely Automobile, holds 45% of the shares.

On December 27, 2021, at the Baidu AI Developer Conference, Baidu founder and CEO Robin Li had high hopes for Jidu Automobile, saying that in the first half of 2022, Jidu will announce the first concept car, and will mass-produce and deliver the first automotive robot in 2023, full of confidence in the future of Jidu. According to him, the automotive robot developed by Jidu will have L4 level automatic driving capabilities.

Jidu Automobile is developed on the basis of Geely SEA Haohan Intelligent Architecture, and the electronic and electrical architecture is completely developed by itself, with L4 level capabilities. Automobile production and manufacturing in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, the sales link will be mainly direct stores. At present, Jidu's self-developed electronic and electrical architecture JET1.0, as well as SOA, automatic driving system, core computing power platform, and related sensors are making efforts to mass production.

After this round of financing, Jidu Automobile said that it will increase the introduction and training of cutting-edge talents in high-level automatic driving, smart cockpit, intelligent manufacturing and other related fields; accelerate the construction of the system for the development and operation of users in the intelligent car market, and ensure that the first automotive robot products of Jidu will be presented to consumers in 2023.

Jidu Automobile also said that the first automotive robot concept car will be released at the Beijing Auto Show in April 2022, and the mass production model will be launched in 2023.