On February 28, yingche technology, a self driving truck technology and operation company, announced that it had completed the round B + equity financing of US $188 million. This round of financing is jointly led by Sequoia China and Junlian capital, and the investors include Chow Tai Fook, Chen Bai capital, Wuchan Zhongda Group Co.Ltd(600704) , meituan, Weilai capital, stone capital, Bohua capital, etc.
Through this round of financing, winning technology will further increase its own automated truck driving system “Xuanyuan”, the joint industry partners to launch more production models, and speed up the layout in the field of electrodynamics.
This is the second financing completed by yingche technology in nearly half a year. Last August, yingche technology obtained a round B financing of US $270 million jointly led by JD logistics, meituan and taimeng.
Since 2021, the popularity of self driving trucks, as a sub circuit of self driving, has continued to rise, with a large influx of industrial funds and an endless stream of new players. Tucson future, a head self driving truck company, successfully landed on NASDAQ in April last year and became the world’s first stock of self driving trucks. However, Tucson’s future performance in the secondary market is not good. At present, the share price has fallen by more than half compared with the issue price.
luxury founding team + luxury investor
Founded in 2018, yingche technology locates the automatic driving technology and operation company, jointly develops and produces L3 automatic driving heavy trucks with the main engine factory, builds its own operation scenario, starts from the L3 transportation capacity platform and creates an automatic driving transportation capacity network. Data show that the company launched the L3 automatic driving system Xuanyuan in March last year, carrying the heavy truck of the system to achieve mass production by the end of last year.
The core team of yingche technology can be called luxury, which gathers veterans in the fields of automatic driving technology, vehicle and logistics. In addition to being the CEO of yingche technology, founder Ma Zhenren is also the president of G7, a freight data service company. Previously, he served as vice president of Tencent and was responsible for Tencent’s automatic driving and Internet of vehicles business.
In 2020, yingche technology ushered in two technological “big cows”. Yang Ruigang and Tian Chen served as the technical president and vice president of the company respectively. Before joining yingche technology, Yang Ruigang served as director and chief 3D vision scientist of Siasun Robot&Automation Co.Ltd(300024) and automatic driving laboratory in Baidu. Tian Chen is a former vice president of Huawei US technology and software architect. They are respectively responsible for the two parts of yingche technology, artificial intelligence and software system engineering.
In addition, Huang Gang, former general manager of Dongfeng commercial vehicle, and ah Yushun, former general manager of Yto Express Group Co.Ltd(600233) operation center, are also in the core team of yingche technology. In other words, yingche technology has completed the gathering of high-end talents in the whole chain from technology to vehicle mass production to tob operation.
At the capital level, yingche technology is also popular with head institutions.
Public information shows that since its establishment, the company has completed five rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing amount of more than 678 million US dollars. Investors include head institutions such as PLoS, IDG and China Merchants Bank International Capital, as well as well-known enterprises upstream and downstream of the industrial chain such as Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) , Weilai, JD logistics and meituan.
Among them, except for the undisclosed round a investment, Weilai capital has increased its investment in yingche for four consecutive rounds. It is worth mentioning that Weilai capital has invested in yingche’s competitive products company Xiaoma Zhixing and mainline technology.
hot primary market vs calm secondary market
EU billion think tank combed the investment and financing situation in the field of automatic driving, and believed that since 2018, the capital market has paid more and more attention to automatic driving, and the scene track with commercialization possibility has attracted the attention of more investors, while the trunk logistics scene has gradually become the focus of capital in the field of automatic driving in the past two years.
Since this year, three self driving truck companies, including yingche technology, have announced the completion of financing. Among them, mainline technology completed round B financing on February 16, led by BAIC industrial investment, and the amount was not disclosed; Optimus smart card completed the angel round financing of nearly ten million yuan on January 27, with the exclusive investment of Wuyuan capital.
Kou Shiqi, an expert on whale platform and vice president of Jingkai capital, told the science and Innovation Board daily that the electric and intelligent transformation of the automotive industry is an inevitable trend, a revolution in the automotive industry and contains great opportunities. The self driving truck emphasizes the application scenario of self driving, which can replace truck drivers and effectively reduce labor costs. Therefore, it has actual market demand and has attracted the attention of more investment institutions.
Everbright Securities Company Limited(601788) research report shows that the growth rate of logistics transportation cost in China is higher than that of freight, and logistics companies have an urgent need to reduce costs. In 2020, the labor cost increased by 81.5%, the distribution cost increased by 35.5%, and the transportation cost accounted for 53% of the total cost. The stabilizing effect of self driving truck on labor cost and fuel cost can solve the great pain point of logistics and transportation industry.
Yang Wu, vice president of hongjingzhijia, one of the head autonomous truck companies, said at a round table at the end of last year that the feedback of the logistics industry on autonomous trucks has become positive from being unfamiliar and not optimistic in 2020. “The market of self driving trucks has been unknowingly educated. Everyone is asking when the car can be mass produced, when it can be tried out, how much it costs, etc. the industry is paying more and more attention to and expecting more and more self driving trucks. I think this is the biggest change on the demand side this year.”
However, Tucson future, which landed on NASDAQ in April last year and is known as the world’s first stock of self driving trucks, is sluggish in the secondary market. As of today’s close, Tucson’s future share price is US $17.06/share, with a total market value of 3.79 billion yuan. Compared with the issue price of $40 / share, it has fallen 57%.
Tucson also has a luxurious founder team and early investors in the future. Chen Mo, co-founder and CEO, is a continuous entrepreneur who has successively founded sky advertising, dark blue brothers and cheguo.com. Hou Xiaodi, co-founder and CTO, is an expert in computer vision and has 11 years of research experience in this field.
Tucson won the investment of chip giant NVIDIA in the angel round in 2017, and NVIDIA also appeared in the subsequent rounds of financing. BlackRock, fidelity and capital world investors, the three top investment institutions, participated in Tucson’s future IPO subscription as cornerstone investors.
On February 12, Tucson announced its performance report for 2021. The company’s revenue was US $6.261 million, compared with us $1.843 million in the same period last year, with a year-on-year increase of 240%; The net loss attributable to common shareholders was US $737 million, compared with us $19900 in the same period last year. In other words, the company’s revenue is expanding at the same time.
Tucson once said in the prospectus that its products will not be delivered until 2024, and the revenue and expenditure can be balanced only when the number of trucks reaches 5000. The feasibility of Tucson’s future business model has been tested.
In the relevant research report, yiou think tank said, “as the first share of automatic driving in the world, Tucson will become the wind vane of automatic driving investment in the future, and its share price performance will affect the valuation of a number of automatic driving technology enterprises, especially automatic driving technology companies located at the same trunk logistics track.”
