Autonomous driving company Pony.ai announced that it has been authorized to conduct driverless tests on public roads in Beijing. The pilot zone covers major subway stations, residential areas, and tech parks. Since the beginning of this year, Pony.ai has obtained unmanned test licenses or permits in California, Guangzhou and Beijing, making it the first company to obtain unmanned test licenses for autonomous driving in these three cities. IDG Capital was a seed investor in Pony.ai and joined the company’s $112 million Series A funding round in 2018.

Creative Biosciences, a Chinese producer of early-stage cancer screening and diagnostic kits, has raised $87 million in its Series D round led by e-commerce giant Alibaba. Founded in 2018, Creative Biosciences has partnered with more than 600 medical institutions and completed more than 200,000 tests. Its flagship product has become an important way to detect early-stage colon cancer. The firm has also gained significant progress in developing early diagnosis products for lung cancer and bladder cancer tumors. Previously, IDG Capital joined the company’s Series B and Series C financing rounds.

IDG Capital led a $70 million Series C funding round in Sciwind Biosciences, a Hangzhou, China and San Francisco CA-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. Sciwind Biosciences is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focusing on discovering and developing innovative therapies to treat metabolic diseases. The firm also developed multiple proprietary technologies, including oral peptide and inhaled protein therapeutics delivery platforms and has identified multiple drug candidates based on these core platform technologies.

IDG Capital has participated a Series B financing round of GV20 Oncotherapy, a biotechnology company with unique expertise in novel target identification and antibody drug discovery in immuno-oncology. Founded in 2016, GV20 Oncotherapy applies novel genomics and AI techniques to accelerate antibody drug discovery and development for cancer immunotherapy. Over the last few years, GV20 has built a proprietary genetic screening and functional genomics platform for target identification.

SenseTime, a leading Chinese startup specializing in artificial intelligence (AI), has launched a joint lab in Sichuan with the West China Hospital of Sichuan University (WCHSCU) to fill the talent gap in medical researchers and professionals who are well versed in AI. Under the collaborative framework, which aims to integrate the industry, academia, research, and medicine, the two parties are dedicated to nurturing the next generation of AI healthcare talents in a structured and systematic way. IDG Capital led SenseTime's initial Series A funding round and also joined the company's Series B round.

Rokid, a Hangzhou-based developer of augmented and mixed reality (AR/MR) glasses and headwear startup, has announced a collaboration with Imnit, a provider of video enhancement software. Under the agreement, Imint’s ‘Vidhance’ software will be integrated into Rokid’s new 5G-enabled ‘X-Craft’ AR headband, providing industrial workers access to visual information whilst on the job. The ‘X-Craft’ is designed for use in high-risk environments, such as in the oil & gas, electric power, aviation, and rail transport sectors. An angel investor in Rokid, IDG Capital also joined the firm’s multiple funding rounds.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has joined a $4.5 million funding round in Eternal, an NFT marketplace for trading popular clips from game streamers. Streamers can sell top clips, which are already tracked by platforms like Twitch, as well as videos from their social media, “immortalizing” the moments on the blockchain. A big selling point of the platform is that it’s built on Dapper Labs’ Flow, a consumer app-friendly blockchain which cuts back on complexity. The marketplace has done nearly $300,000 in transactions this summer.

VisionNav Robotics, a Shenzhen-based automated guided industrial vehicle developer, has completed its Series C round of financing. Established in 2016, VisionNav Robotics focuses on developing industrial vehicles via auto-grade autonomous driving technology, providing flexible crewless freight solutions. The company said that the funds would be put into product R&D, accelerating delivery and application, product team expansion, and expanding the company's global application layout to East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Europe. The April, IDG Capital led VisionNav’s Series B+ financing round.

IDG Capital has led a $155 million Series C funding round in Mech-Mind Robotics, a Chinese AI industrial robotics startup. This latest investment brings Mech-Mind's total funding to over $100 million. Focused on Robotics-Infrastructure in the AI era, Mech-Mind develops a full suite of products and solutions integrating 3D camera, 3D vision and deep learning algorithms, and motion planning technology. Moving forward, Mech-Mind will leverage extensive technical strength to modernize manufacturing by breathing new life into industrial robotics.

Xiaoice, a China-based AI chatbot developer valued at $1 billion, has announced a series of new features, such as natural language processing and smart recommendations in Windows 11 and Microsoft search services. The firm also launched new cooperation deals and AI systems for art creation, smart cabins in cars and the Internet of Things and a new social app – Xiaoice Island – with immersive experiences and interaction with virtual characters. Other partnership deal announced includes AI calculation capacity cooperation with Nvidia, smart device services with firms such as Huawei, Xiaomi and NIO. IDG Capital invested in Xiaoice this year.

Firework, a California-based short-form video-sharing platform competing with TikTok, has formed a partnership with Albertsons, the second-largest supermarket chain in North America. The goal is to encourage shoppers to buy more by showing them videos with recipes and serving ideas as they browse on the retailers’ website, and to give retailers a new way to boost ad revenue by letting brands purchase video ads on their websites. Firework is also in talks with five of the 10 largest U.S. retailers about potential partnerships. Previously, IDG Capital led a $30 million funding in Firework and was also an early investor in Loop Now Technologies, Firework's parent firm

IDG Capital has co-led a $186-million Series E funding round in eSign, a Chinese provider of electronics signature services. Founded in 2002, eSign can help clients process electronic contract with legal effect, saving contract’s full life cycle from couple of days to only tens of seconds. eSign will leverage the new capital to build a collaborative network, scale its business and promote the use of electronic signature service.

Chinese autonomous driving company WeRide has unveiled its first cargo van, the vessel upon which it will self-drive into urban logistics. The company will work with Chinese automobile manufacturer Jiangling Motors (JMC) and Chinese express delivery company ZTO Express to commercialize its first self-driving van at scale. As part of the agreement, WeRide and JMC will jointly design purpose-built models of the Robovan for mass production on JMC’s assembly lines, and ZTO will put the Robovans to good use in their urban logistics service. IDG Capital joined WeRide’s Series C funding round this May.

Anker, a Shenzhen-based manufacturer of power banks, wall chargers and in-home robotic products, plans to develop more sophisticated new products and making the core line faster and lighter. Founded a decade ago, Anker reverse-engineered popular items on Amazon by studying the thousands of reviews and complaints about electronic products posted on the e-commerce platform daily. Anker now sells $1.5 billion worth of smartphone accessories and other consumer electronics products a year. IDG Capital invested in Anker in 2016.

Opay, a mobile payments firm founded by browser company Opera Ltd., has raised $400 million, driving up the company’s valuation to $2 billion. According to OPay, the company’s technology is designed to replace cash and other legacy payment methods, helping local governments “improve financial and information security.” OPay’s monthly transaction volumes exceed $3 billion. IDG Capital, which was also previously a pre-IPO investor in OPay's parent company Opera, led OPay’s Series A funding round and also joined its Series B round.

DEEPEXI, a Beijing-based provider of big data and artificial intelligence-enabled digitization solutions, has completed its $100 million Series B funding round. Founded in 2018, DEEPEXI leverages data intelligence, cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT), and other technologies to develop solutions that enable digital marketing, operations, finance and other business aspects. The startup has over 100 large and medium-size clients in retailing, financial services, manufacturing, and government affairs. IDG Capital led an angel round in Deepexi and joined its $35 million Series A round.