EACON Mining Technology Co Ltd has raised over US$55 million in its series D financing round to accelerate its global expansion, with particular focus on strengthening operations in the Australian market. The round was led by CATL through its investment arm CATL Capital, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicle batteries and a major supplier to Tesla, Volkswagen, BMW and Toyota.
Additional participants include Shaanxi Tonly Heavy Industries Co Ltd, the pioneer and world’s largest manufacturer of wide-body mining dump trucks; CHC Navigation (CHCNAV), a global provider of mapping, navigation and positioning solutions; FG Venture, a venture capital firm focused on high growth technology companies; Xingqi Fund under Falcon Capital; and Zhongji Innolight Co Ltd, a publicly listed Chinese company renowned for its optical communication transceiver modules and intelligent equipment manufacturing.
Since its founding in 2018, EACON’s OEM agnostic smart mining haulage technology has provided factory built and retrofit solutions compatible with any truck manufacturer, offering fleet flexibility in both greenfield and brownfield operations. To date, the company has deployed nearly 1,500 autonomous trucks across 20+ sites, including five sites with over 100 trucks each and three with more than 200. EACON was also the first provider in China to achieve scaled commercialisation across coal, metals and aggregates.
Headquartered in Shanghang, China, EACON operates research and development centres in Beijing, Shanghai and Zhengzhou, alongside localised service networks across China and Australia. The company delivers end-to-end support, from research and development and system integration to deployment, training and maintenance.
Backed by this consortium of industrial and technology partners, EACON will dedicate a significant share of the proceeds to local research and development of its autonomous haulage platform, pilot deployments with partners such as Thiess and Norton Gold Fields and the establishment of sales, support and engineering operations in Australia.
“This funding round reflects strong confidence in EACON’s technology and commercial model,” said Zhang Lei, Co-Founder and Chairman. “Our priorities are threefold: enhance hardware and software to develop next-generation systems that perform reliably in harsh conditions and boost productivity; expand factory fit autonomous solutions to more truck models, especially in metal mining and international markets; and accelerate overseas deployments by closely integrating our technology with local mining operations.”