BEIJING Reuters Chinese autonomous driving startup Momenta said on Friday it has received 500 million from SAIC Motor, Toyota Motor and auto parts supplier Bosch, as the global auto industry pursues the autonomous future.

Other investors in the funding round include Daimler AG, Temasek, Yunfeng Capital and Tencent, Momenta said in a statement. It did not disclose the valuation.

The fouryearold firm, led by Cao Xudong, a former Microsoft executive, is testing autonomous cars in Beijing and Chinas eastern city of Suzhou, and has a research centre in Germanys Stuttgart.

Momenta is working with automakers to develop massproduction vehicles with selfdriving functions to gather realtime data for the fully autonomous driving technologies for future products. Data is a key part of the selfdriving industry which enables companies to improve their technologies in different environments.

Momenta will expand its workforce and gather more data to improve future technologies, it said.

Toyota last year partnered with Momenta to develop a high definition HD mapping platform in China for autonomous driving vehicles, a key to allowing such vehicles to locate themselves.

Shanghaibased SAIC Motor is Chinas biggest automaker, which has partnerships with Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co. On Thursday it said would partner with U.S. lidar maker Luminar Technologies to develop selfdriving vehicles.

Automakers and technology firms are investing billions of dollars in autonomous driving,…