Hello’s robotaxi arm has raised about $100M, a round that puts its post-money value just shy of $3B.
Shanghai Guotou Venture Capital led this financing. China Creation Ventures and Minhang Jintou signed on as well.
The operating company is Shanghai Zufu Intelligent Technology, formed in 2025 by delivery group Hello, Ant Group and battery maker CATL to build L4 self-driving technology and sell it commercially.
The proceeds go toward engineering work: a big GPU cluster, end-to-end AI models and a clean, high-quality pipeline of training data.
Its first vehicle to roll off a production line, the HR1, entered output in July; the program has since passed 100 units.
The raise lands as Chinese robotaxi players compete on both technology and capital. Zufu’s ownership mix is unusual: a delivery platform, a battery supplier and a state-linked investment arm sit inside the same venture. Each of those is a piece a standalone self-driving developer usually has to source elsewhere, and together they hand Zufu a supply chain that rivals must assemble from scratch.
The open question is deployment. Building 100 vehicles is a validation milestone. Running a commercial fleet at scale, against entrenched ride-hailing incumbents and a crowded field of L4 rivals, is the harder test the new capital is meant to fund.
