NIO received hundreds of millions of dollars in financing led by Tencent and Baidu
Text | origin
On March 15th late night news, the Internet emerging car company NIO completed hundreds of millions of dollars in financing, according to sources, the amount is as high as 600 million US dollars. Smart things to NIO related people to verify, the other side said that the specific results have not been finally announced, the exact number to be officially confirmed. The financing led by Tencent, Baidu Capital, a number of institutions followed. After the completion of this round of financing, NIO valuation will reach 20 billion yuan.
Founded in late 2014 by the founder and CEO of Yuanyi, NIO launched the electric supercar EP9 last year after two years of research and development, and recently set a speed record of 257km/h for autonomous vehicles on the driverless track.
The picture shows the NIO electric supercar EP9
Recently, NIO has just released the new electric autonomous driving concept car EVE at the South by Southwest conference in the United States. The mass production model of this car will be launched for middle-class families in the United States, with the intention of entering the US electric vehicle market in 2020.
NIO concept car EVE
At the upcoming Shanghai Auto Show in April, NIO is understood to be unveiling its first production car for China – an electric SUV with L2 to L3 autonomous driving capabilities. Li Bin, NIO’s founder and chairperson, said the production car would be officially delivered in the first half of 2018.
Behind the production schedule is NIO’s frequent actions in R & D team and capacity building. NIO has established design, R & D, production and commercial institutions in 12 places including Shanghai, San Jose, Munich and London, with more than 2,000 employees. In the production of complete vehicles, NIO chose to cooperate with Jianghuai Automobile for its first production vehicle.
In April 2016, NIO reached a strategic cooperation with the Nanjing Municipal Government and invested 3 billion to build a high-performance motor and electronic control system production base in Nanjing. In December 2016, NIO also reached a strategic cooperation with Hubei Province and planned to invest 10 billion yuan to build NIO New Energy Vehicle Industrial Park in Wuhan Optics Valley.
The reason why NIO has been able to continuously demonstrate its generosity is the continuous support of capital.
In 2015, NIO was jointly invested by Tencent, JD.com, High-collar Capital, Shunwei Capital, and Li Xiang, founder of Autohome.
At the end of the same year, NIO completed a $500 million financing, with investors including Sequoia Capital and Joy Capital.
In the summer of 2016, NIO completed another round of financing worth hundreds of millions of dollars, led by Temasek Holdings and joined by TPG and Lenovo.
Regarding the lead investor in this financing, Tencent, as one of the early investors in NIO, has made investments shortly after Li Bin established the company, and has maintained its investment in NIO since then.
Baidu is a new investor. It is reported that this is also the first investment project after the establishment of Baidu Capital. It has been reported that Baidu plans to invest $100 million in NIO to cooperate with NIO in the field of autonomous driving. Analysis said that Baidu’s investment in NIO is intended to accelerate its autonomous driving pace and increase its own voice over autonomous driving through cooperation with emerging automakers.
Other investors this time include Warburg Pincus, IDG, Hopu, Lenovo, Hillhouse, Industrial, GIC, TPG, CICC, Capital Today, Haitong International and other well-known investment institutions.