NIO Capital’s Picks

 

NIO Capital Co-leads 200-million-yuan Series A Financing for BIBO

 

NIO Capital co-led the 200-million-yuan Series A round financing for BIBO, a provider of intelligent chassis solutions to customers all over the world. BIBO boasts a core R&D team with members accounting for about 70 percent of the company’s workforce. Most of the R&D professionals have previous experience working with industry leaders such as Bosch, Continental AG, SAIC and BYD, or studying at prestigious universities. Well-grounded in technologies thanks to many years of expertise, they are also well-connected both inside and outside the industry and are highly experienced in product engineering for mass manufacturing.

 

NIO Capital Co-leads Series A Financing for Sinpro

 

Sinpro, a newcomer in the smart driving sector, raised hundreds of million yuan from investors co-led by NIO Capital in its Series A round. The company aims to serve the fields of smart driving, unmanned driving and intelligent transportation through making technological innovations. Sinpro engages in the R&D of environmental perception solutions for vehicles reaching L3+ driving automation. Its products include smart hardware with 4D imaging radar systems, sensor algorithms and software, and environmental perception products based on artificial intelligence. The company provides solutions enhancing autonomous driving systems’ perception, as well as multi-sensor information fusion functions, and pushes for the mass manufacturing of such products.

 

NIO Capital Holds CEO Club 2023 Training Camp

 

NIO Capital's post-investment team has introduced a comprehensive enhancement to the NIO Capital CEO Club Training Camp. The upcoming camp in 2023 will encompass three modules designed to empower participants in various aspects. Firstly, the 13+1 Enterprise Management System module will concentrate on fostering organizational growth. Secondly, the Leadership Course aims to instigate profound transformations in founders' mindsets. Lastly, the Learning Tour to Enterprises offers an invaluable opportunity for attendees to glean insights from industry-leading companies.

 

 

NIO Capital CEO Club Online Webinar: Interpretation of A-shares IPOs Under the Full Registration System

 

In February, the A-shares market officially introduced the registration-based IPO system. Qin Lei, the Managing Director of Guotai Junan Securities in the Energy Industry Sector, along with his team, recently discussed their perspectives on this matter. The discussion took place during an online session organized by the NIO Capital CEO Club, aimed at providing valuable insights to enhance the growth of its portfolio companies in a more precise and efficient manner.

 

Leading ESG Initiatives

 

NIO Capital Releases 2022 ESG Report

 

NIO Capital today released the 2022 ESG Report (the "Report"), marking the first time the fund publicly released its ESG report. The Report details the fund's comprehensive sustainability strategy and management system, highlighting the measurable efforts of NIO Capital and its portfolio companies in combating climate change. In 2020, NIO Capital established and issued its Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS), benchmarking top-tier international standards. The policy undergoes annual updates to align with evolving investment strategies, the changing ecosystem, and to identify potential ESG-related risks and their impact on portfolio companies. You can download the full 2022 NIO Capital ESG Report here.  

 

Portfolio Updates

 

Nine NIO Capital Portfolio Companies in Limelight at Shanghai Auto Show

 

At the 20th Shanghai Auto Show, nine NIO Capital portfolio companies displayed cutting-edge technologies and products at the show. The companies were LiDAR systems developer Innovusion, intelligent chassis solutions provider BIBO, domestic smart cockpit industry leader Autolink, auto-dimming glass provider Ambilight, automotive electronics developer Hiway, autonomous driving chip developer Black Sesame Technologies, autonomous driving chip maker Rhino, luxury automaker Lotus, and lithium battery integration technology provider Sunwoda Electric Vehicle Battery Co. NIO Capital invested in these companies over a six-year time span, and we are pleased to see them grow into industry leaders.

 

Automobiles and Logistics

 

Newrizon Deepens Strategic Cooperation with Horizon Robotics

 

Automated electric truck and van maker Newrizon and Horizon Robotics, a leading provider of energy-efficient computing solutions for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving (AD) for consumer vehicles, will jointly develop highly efficient and effective intelligent computing solutions and push for the development and application of high-level smart driving products. A jointly-built model for mass production is scheduled to debut in 2024.

 

Momenta Officially Releases Mpilot Pro

 

Momenta, a leading autonomous driving technology company, further deepened strategic cooperation with NVIDIA, by releasing Mpilot Pro, a smart driving solution developed using the cost-effective chip NVIDIA DRIVE Orin and tailored for mainstream mid-range vehicles. Mass-produced models equipped with Mpilot Pro will hit the market in the latter half of this year.

 

Robotaxis Equipped with Pony.ai Tech Hit Beijing Roads

 

An all-new generation of robotaxis equipped with Pony.ai’s 6th generation of autonomous driving hardware systems became the first batch of vehicles being tested on public roads in an autonomous driving demo zone in Yizhuang, Beijing. The vehicles have completed a road test mileage totaling 50,000 km so far, and are expected to enter the phase of unmanned vehicle testing soon. Afterward, the self-driving robotaxis will provide services to residents in the demo zone.

 

Energy

 

AlphaESS Helps Thermal Power Plant Bounce Back After Blackout

 

AlphaESS, a leading global energy storage solution and service provider, provided the Guangdong Datang International Zhaoqing Thermal Power Co with a 12.5MW/12.5MWh comprehensive energy solution, allowing the latter’s frequency-modulated energy storage project to. restart parts of the power system to recover from a blackout. The move has achieved coordinated operation of turbines and energy storage systems, improved the facility’s capacity to respond to emergencies as well as the reliability of its power supplies, and thus helped the plant secure maximum economic efficiency.

 

Nanopore Kicks Off Construction of 11.2-billion-yuan Phase II Project

 

Battery material producer Nanopore will build an international new-energy material industrial park in Yangzhou, East China’s Jiangsu Province. Once in full swing, the park is expected to roll out 5 billion square meters of aluminum and copper foils with ALD surface modification and nano coating for current collectors.

 

HyperStrong Reaches Strategic Cooperation with Huafa Group, Zonergy Corp., Sermatec

 

• HyperStrong, a provider of energy storage system solutions, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Huafa Group, the largest state-owned enterprise in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province. The two sides struck a deal on in-depth cooperation in developing and transforming Zhuhai’s energy storage industry to make Zhuhai a powerhouse in the sector.

 

• HyperStrong signed a strategic cooperation deal with Zonergy Corp., a national-level high-tech enterprise specialising in smart microgrid integrated solutions. The two companies have reached tentative agreements regarding collaboration on several fronts, including domestic and overseas market expansion, projects and products.

 

• HyperStrong struck a strategic cooperation deal with Sermatec, a leading manufacturer of energy storage systems. The two sides plan to carry out cooperation in the technology, manufacturing, and marketing of energy storage systems.

 

Deep Technologies

 

Innovusion Strikes Cooperation Deals with DeepWay, Fuyao Group

 

Innovusion and DeepWay, a smart new energy heavy-duty truck startup, will speed up mass deployment of LiDAR systems on smart heavy trucks, and jointly push forward large-scale application of high-end autonomous driving technology in trunk logistics scenarios.

 

Innovusion and Fuyao Group, a multinational manufacturer of automobile safety glass and industrial technical glass, will work together on the innovative development and commercialization of LiDAR integration solutions, in order to provide new ideas that take both aesthetics and practicability into account with regard to the installation of LiDAR systems, at a crucial time when mass deployment of the systems on vehicles is being accelerated.

 

CIX Technology Joins Deepin Community, to Jointly-build Arm PC SIG with Arm China

 

CIX Technology, committed to developing energy-efficient computing solutions compatible with the Arm instruction set, officially joined the Linux-based Deepin Community. It will partner up with Deepin and Arm China to build Arm PC SIG (Special Interest Group) and further promote prosperity and technological innovations of the Linux-based desktop operating system on the Arm platform. Deepin is an open-source community made up of developers, designers, ordinary members and proponents, with registered users totaling more than 120,000.

 

Jaguar Microsystems, China Mobile Co-release Cloud Computing Universal Programmable DPU Development White Paper (2023)

 

DPU developer Jaguar Microsystems and China Mobile (Suzhou) Software Technology Co., the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology jointly released the Cloud Computing Universal Programmable DPU Development White Paper (2023). The white paper offers an in-depth analysis of the design concept of cloud computing universal programmable DPUs. In particular, it points out that DPUs characterized by hierarchical programmability, low latency networks and unified control of resources will become the essential core components in the integration of computing power and networks.

 

Black Sesame Technologies Partners up with Baidu, and Strikes Cooperation Deal with Marelli

 

• Black Sesame became Baidu's top choice as a local SoC chip partner for the latter’s autonomous driving platform Apollo. The two companies will co-develop smart driving products featuring an integration of software and hardware, facilitating high-speed Navigate on Autopilot (NOA) and parking functions. The new products are scheduled for official release in 2023 Q3.

 

• Black Sesame and Marelli will carry out all-round and in-depth strategic cooperation in smart driving, smart cockpit and multi-domain integration, in an effort to create highly efficient, high-quality and cost-effective products and services and accelerate the pace of bringing them to the mass market.

 

AIpark Releases New-generation Robots

 

Leading smart parking solution provider AIpark released new series of products based on such AI technologies as deep learning and video/image recognition. The UHD hardware products with 8 million active pixels will facilitate smart parking on city roads and help solve some of the pressing problems in urban parking.