Chinese trucking company DeepWay (深向) has drawn fresh capital as it looks to expand its horizons into new markets. The heavy-duty driverless truck maker has raised more than $310 million in an expanded pre-IPO round, backed by UAE-based Stone Venture and Australia’s NGS Super.
The funding signals rising global appetite for China’s autonomous driving technology, particularly as companies start eyeing life beyond domestic testbeds and sizing up the green grass of global freight corridors.
DeepWay is positioning itself around fixed-route, short-haul bulk transport — a segment that accounts for roughly 40% to 50% of China’s road freight volume and is widely seen to be the most commercially viable entry point for autonomy. These routes are predictable, repeatable, easy to map, and all that makes them a natural proving ground for scaling driverless systems.
Founded by Baidu and logistics firm Lionbridge, DeepWay has already begun deploying platooning operations across regions including Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, while continuing to test fully driverless capabilities. Its hybrid approach – a combination of assisted driving with gradual automation – reflects another industry trend: incremental rollouts rather than full autonomy from day one.
The company’s commercial footprint is also expanding. According to its Hong Kong IPO filing, DeepWay had delivered around 6,400 new-energy heavy trucks by mid-2025, generating RMB 1.97 billion (about US $288 million) in revenue in 2024. In spite of these rosy looking numbers, the company is still working at a loss. It’s not the only firm to be doing so in and industry where investment in R&D and infrastructure continues to climb.
Competition is also intensifying. Rivals such as KargoBot and Zeron Truck have also secured fresh funding this year, pointing to a broader investor consensus: autonomous trucking is moving out of the experimental phase. With hardware costs falling, infrastructure improving, and regulations gradually easing, the sector is edging toward scalable deployment and, increasingly, a global market.
