<p><strong>FREMONT</strong> &#8212; Pony.ai, a global autonomous driving technology company with offices in Fremont and China, has completed its first close of its Series D financing.</p>
<p>The company did not reveal the amount of its Series D round, which said has a significant valuation uplift from the 2020 “C” and “C+” rounds and values the company at $8.5 billion. The proceeds from the funding will be used to further augment Pony.ai’s hiring, investment in research and development, global testing of robotaxi and robotrucking on an ever-growing fleet, enter into important strategic partnerships, and accelerate our development toward mass production and mass commercial deployment.</p>
<p>The company has been testing autonomous driving services on local roads in Fremont and Milpitas, CA as well as Shenzen and Beijing, China.</p>
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<p>“I am very proud to announce this first close of our Series D,” said James Peng, co-founder and CEO of Pony.ai. “The success of this financing belongs to the entire Pony.ai team, who have made tremendous strides in achieving and exceeding our 2021 milestones. We are excited about our 2022 objectives and the rapid pace of our development toward autonomous mobility globally. Our technical development and balance sheet strength go hand-in-hand in allowing us to significantly expand our hiring in 2022, open up a number of new autonomous vehicle global testing and operation sites, progress our strategic partnerships and rapidly grow our fleet. We appreciate the support of our investors in the previous rounds and welcome our new partners to Pony.ai’s global story.”</p>
<p>Founded in 2016, Pony.ai is working on autonomous mobility technologies and services at a rapidly expanding footprint of sites around the world. Pony.ai has formed partnerships with leading Asian automakers including Toyota, FAW Group, GAC Group, etc.</p>
<p>“A key part of our story for our investors is our tech development path. From 2020 to the end of 2021, our key safety metrics increased tremendously, such that in most circumstances Pony.ai’s virtual driver is now equal to or superior to a human driver,” said Tiancheng Lou, Pony.ai co-founder and CTO. “We’re confident in our autonomous vehicle tech readiness as we rapidly scale toward robotaxi and robotruck commercialization and mass production,” he said.</p>
<p>“We’re delighted by the financial progression at Pony.ai and the substantial valuation increase to our 2020 C and C+ rounds. This significant uptick in valuation is a reflection by our partners of our delivered results over the last year and our very specific development milestones for 2022. Our company has always been well funded, and this round funds development at Pony.ai several years into the future &#8211; in fact, we believe, up to the window for our anticipated launch of mass commercialization,” said Lawrence Steyn, CFO of Pony.ai.</p>
<p>Additional details of the Series D financing will be announced at the closing of the full financing round.</p>

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