On April 17, the Internet of Vehicles company Shanghai PATEO announced that it had obtained the B round of financing from Xiaomi Group (an important Chinese smartphone player now covering business in the international market, find more news about Xiaomi here). The two parties will carry out in-depth cooperation in the future to jointly develop the Internet of Vehicles market. This is also an important exploration of the Internet of Vehicles after Xiaomi extended its business reach to the hotel and real estate fields.
In the mobile phone market, Xiaomi faces increasingly fierce competition, the “mobile phone + AIOT” strategy has become another growth engine for Xiaomi, hoping to gradually develop from 2C business to 2B business. In 2019, under this strategy, Xiaomi took the lead in entering the B-end market such as hotels and real estate. At the same time, Xiaomi has always been paying special attention to the field of the Internet of Vehicles. PATEO has always focused on the Internet of Vehicles market and has formulated “1 + 1 + N” in its development strategy, which is vehicle + mobile phone + N. N refers to various input and output devices, including headphones, watches, bracelets, TVs, etc. Smart home and various IoT devices. From the corporate strategy of both parties, there is a relatively high degree of fit.
It is understood that in the past few years, Xiaomi and PATEO have communicated many times. Based on this strategic investment, Xiaomi and PATEO will conduct all-round cooperation in software/hardware and voice multi-scenario interaction. Xiaomi believes that Xiaomi’s voice assistant “Xiaoai Tongxue” will play an important role in the connected car scenario.
Shortly before obtaining the strategic investment of Xiaomi, PATEO has received hundreds of millions of yuan of strategic investment from Dongfeng Motor Group. At present, PATEO has reached car networking cooperation with auto brands such as SAIC Volkswagen, Geely, Changan, Jaguar Land Rover, and Audi. In 2019, PATEO and SGMW Baojun jointly launched the “Internet of Cars”, which uses the computing power and AI capabilities of mobile phones to replace car machines, realizing the “smart car machine in your pocket. The new Baojun RS-5 and other models have already been equipped with a “portable car network”.
