Ninebot, a Chinese transportation technology company, said it raised the equivalent of $100 million in a Series C round to finance the development of mobile robotics and intelligent short-distance transportation products.
The startup raised the capital from the SDIC Fund Management Co. and the China Mobile Fund. CEO Lufeng Gao said the investment is being done with the expectation that artificial intelligence coupled with intelligent robotics will play a larger role in everyday life in coming years, according to an Oct. 24 news release.
China is the largest buyer of industrial robots and Chinese companies have been buying up robotics businesses globally for several year, as The Robot Report reported in mid-2016.
Ninebot, which was founded in 2012, has received investment capital from a syndicate of prominent investors such as Xiaomi, Sequoia Capital, Shunwei Capital, Huashan Capital, Intel, GIC and Haiquan Funds.
In early 2015, Ninebot acquired Segway Inc., the developer of electric self-balancing transportation. Ninebot formed the Segway & Ninebot Group following the acquisition. It now focuses on two major business segments: Personal Transportation and Segway Robotics.
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