- Shanghai AI drugmaker Anew Labs raised $290 million in its first standalone funding round, valuing the company at $1.5 billion
- Other deals include about $100 million for a robotaxi operator, a $15 million-plus round for an autonomous mining-truck maker and fresh funding for an AI inference chipmaker
AI drugmaker Anew Labs raises $290 million in first funding deal
Shanghai-based AI drug discovery company Anew Labs (新生探途) has raised $290 million in its first standalone funding round, marking one of the largest recent financing transactions in China’s AI-for-drug-discovery sector.
The round was led by a bunch of leading backers. They include HongShan, IDG Capital, GL Ventures and 5Y Capital as lead investors. Gaorong Capital, Primavera Capital and Boyu Capital also participated.
ByteDance, which incubated the company, continues to hold a 56% stake following the financing. The deal values Anew Labs at $1.5 billion post-money.
Anew Labs was originally established as an internal drug discovery team at ByteDance in 2021 under Liu Kai. Its core team now numbers about 50 people, and the company formally began operating as an independent business in June 2026.
The company operates multiple platforms for biomolecular structure prediction and design, antibody design and optimization, and drug discovery.
Its pipeline includes a small-molecule inhibitor that the company describes as the world’s first to simultaneously target all three dimer types in the IL-17 family.
The latest financing will support the development of its AI-driven drug discovery platforms and pipeline.
HelloRide’s robotaxi unit bags $100 million at $3 billion valuation
Shanghai-based L4 autonomous driving company Zaofu Intelligence (造父智能), which operates HelloRide’s robotaxi business, has completed a new financing round of about $100 million.
The funding was led by Shanghai SSCI Leading Private Equity Fund Management, with Minhang Financial Investment and China Creation Ventures also participating. The post-money valuation is close to $3 billion.
Founded in June 2025, the company was established by HelloRide (哈啰), Ant Group and CATL, which together initially invested more than 3 billion yuan.
Zaofu Intelligence focuses on the development and commercialization of L4 autonomous driving technology and received a strategic investment from Alibaba in September 2025.
Its first mass-produced L4 vehicle, the HR1, rolled off the production line in July 2026, with more than 100 units produced.
The company has a R&D team of more than 500 people and has integrated its robotaxi service into both the Alipay and HelloRide apps.
The latest funding will mainly be used to expand computing capacity for its 10,000-vehicle fleet, upgrade its end-to-end AI foundation models and build out its data supply chain.
Under its current plan, the company will begin deploying vehicles in Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the second half of 2026 and aims to deploy more than 50,000 robotaxis by 2027.
Mining truck startup Boonray nets $15 million in pre-IPO round
Shanghai-based autonomous mining-truck maker Boonray (伯镭科技) has raised more than 100 million yuan ($14.9 million) in a pre-IPO round from Rio Tinto, CITIC Group and Xiamen Tungsten Co.,Ltd, with existing investor Jiuzhi Capital also participating.
The investment was made through the Suzhou Rio Tinto Xinxin Equity Investment Fund, an industrial fund jointly established by Rio Tinto and CITIC. This is Rio Tinto’s first industrial investment fund established in China, and Boonray is the fund’s first portfolio company.
Founded in 2015, Boonray entered the autonomous mining sector in 2018. According to data from CIC Intelligence, the company ranked first in China’s electric mining-truck segment in 2025 by both shipments and revenue, with market shares of 45.5% and 42.8%, respectively.
Boonray’s autonomous mining trucks are now operating routinely at more than 30 mining sites across China. They have collectively traveled more than 93 million kilometers without a safety incident, according to the company.
The company filed an application to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in January 2026.
NPU chipmaker Veloxis AI closes angel funding
Hangzhou-based AI inference chip developer Veloxis AI (微路智能) has raised tens of millions of yuan in an angel round led exclusively by Digital China New Energy Resources Holdings.
The company was founded in July 2026 and is headquartered in Hangzhou’s Qiantang District.
It was established by a team originating from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), or Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne, in Switzerland, with core members bringing years of experience in AI chip and neural-network processor development, including chip architecture, AI compilers and digital integrated-circuit design.
Its CTO, Dr. Xu Weihong (徐炜鸿), holds a PhD from the University of California, San Diego, and previously participated in a TSMC joint research project on edge AI chips.
Veloxis AI is developing its own GPNPU general-purpose neural-network processor architecture for edge devices, targeting industrial PCs, computing boxes, smart terminals and robots that require local inference for large AI models.
Its product portfolio includes GPNPU edge AI inference chips, AI accelerator cards and supporting compilers and developer toolchains.
The company’s four core technologies cover a general-purpose programmable GPNPU architecture, hardware-level optimization of operators used in large-model inference, low-power computing-resource scheduling, and end-to-end hardware-software co-design and compilation.
The latest funding will be used primarily for tape-out and engineering validation of its first-generation chip, as well as expansion of its core R&D team.
