NIO Capital’s Picks

 

▌NIO Capital’s Ian Zhu Speaks at Inaugural Asia New Vision Forum in Singapore

 

Ian Zhu, Managing Partner of NIO Capital, was invited to attend the inaugural Asia New Vision Forum and participated in two panels. Organized by Caixin Global with the support and collaboration of the Singapore government, the forum received official backing from the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). Read more here.

 

▌NIO Capital Participates in CIX Technology’s Series Funding Round

 

NIO Capital participated in ARM CPU Startup CIX Technology's multimillion-yuan Series A round of funding, after co-leading the Pre-A round and becoming its partner to promote its first application of the chip designed for in-vehicle computing. CIX Technology hit its strides in general-purpose CPUs by accelerating R&D and enhancing its expertise in technology and business.

 

▌NIO Capital Co-leads Series A Funding Round for Meritech Integrated Circuits

 

NIO Capital co-led the Series A Funding Round for Meritech Integrated Circuits, a Beijing-based chip supplier, which scored nearly 100 million yuan.

 

The company focuses on the R&D of high-speed, high-performance analog-to-digital mixed-signal chains and interface products. One of them is in-vehicle SerDes, a functional block that serializes and deserializes digital data used in high-speed chip-to-chip communication. Besides, it is also the owner of intellectual property rights of core products. The founding team of Meritech comprises experts from leading global analog semiconductor companies such as ADI, MAXIM, and Marvell, bringing a wealth of experience and technical expertise in high-end analog and mixed-signal design fields, particularly in SerDes.

 

 

 Leading ESG Initiative

 

 

▌NIO Capital Celebrates World Environment Day 2023 by Highlighting Portfolio Companies’ Carbon Emission Results

 

This year, the theme of China's Environment Day is "Building a Modernization that Achieves Harmonious Coexistence between Humans and Nature," which is also a concept that NIO Capital has been persistently practicing.

 

On World Environment Day, NIO Capital released a special edition dedicated to the day, expressing their sincerest gratitude to portfolio companies contributing to environmental protection. These include Aulton New Energy, PCG Power, Ambilight, NewLink, Sunman Energy, AlphaESS, Eacon, Inceptio Technology, YKC and TrunkTech.

 

 

Portfolio Updates 

 

Automotive and Logistics

 

▌Ambilight’s EC Dimming Canopy Features on NIO ET5 Touring

 

In June, NIO launched and started to deliver ET5 Touring. The car features electrochromic technology developer Ambilight’s "Gray-Black EC Dimming Insulation Canopy", which enjoys a solar energy blocking rate of 86.3% and intelligently senses the light intensity outside the vehicle to automatically switch between transparent and blackout modes, providing users with a comfortable experience.

 

▌Inceptio Delivers Trucks to Deppon, Wins SAIL Award

 

• Autonomous truck developer Inceptio delivered vehicles in over 10 cities in China to help Deppon Express provide logistics services around the shopping carnival on June 18th.

 

• With high-level intelligent driving system for trucks that can be mass-produced, Inceptio was named one of the TOP 30 finalists of the SAIL (Super AI Leader) Award. Boasting six-year history, SAIL Award upholds the principles of high-end, internationalization, specialization, marketization and intelligence in its selection and operation

 

▌BIBO Marks Major Milestone

 

Since its establishment two years ago, intelligent chassis solution provider BIBO has built R&D centers in Beijing and Shanghai and one production base, Nantong Digital Factory, creating a mature organizational structure.

 

The company completed the comprehensive layout of BEHB (TwoBox, BEBS+BESC) and BIBC (OneBox) products and enhanced production capacity to over 1.5 million sets of full-stack self-developed braking products, becoming the first startup in China to have established a BIBC production line. The company expects to deliver more than 200,000 sets within the year.

 

▌Yunchuang Zhixing Aces Level 4 Autonomous Driving Open Road Test

 

YC-200, an autonomous driving outdoor sweeper of unmanned sanitation solution provider Yunchuang Zhixing, passed the open road test for low-speed driverless vehicles held by the Fifth Institute of Electronics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, signaling that the company’s products have met the technical standard to operate on the open road.

 

▌EACON Blazes its Trials in Nanlutian Coal Mine

 

By late July, autonomous driving company EACON will provide Nanlutian Coal Mine with another 100 trucks, which is bound to be the first application of more than 100 autonomous driving trucks in one coal mine for commercial purposes worldwide.

 

Nanlutian is the only coal mine project among the 23 key projects of the National Western Development Strategy implemented in 2010, with an approved production capacity of 40 million tons per year, ranking first in China.

 

EACON’s autonomous mining project in Nanlutian has operated safely for 30 months since November 2020. By May 2023, the transportation mileage had reached 1.09 million kilometers, ranking the top in the industry in terms of actual mileage of driverless operations.

 

New Energy

 

▌AlphaEss Rank First in Australia's Energy Storage Market Share

 

The Australian Energy Storage Battery Market Report, published by SunWiz, an independent research firm specializing in solar market data and analysis in Australia, shows that energy storage solution provider AlphaEss ranked first in Australia's energy storage market share (23%) in 2022.

 

▌PCG Power Launches Solar Pilot Program at Beijing Yongdingmen Bus Station

 

PCG Power, an integrated energy management service provider, cooperated with Beijing Bus Group and Longruisanyou, an electric vehicle provider, to develop a pilot program at Yongdingmen Station. This project uses 2,985 square meters of charging pile canopies in Beijing Yongdingmen Bus Station to arrange photovoltaic modules to generate solar power, which can be used by the bus station itself or connected to the state grid for transportation to other areas when there is a surplus.

 

By switching from thermal power to solar power, this project can save 86 tons of standard coal and reduce 271 tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to planting 15,000 trees per year.

 

▌Sunman Energy Helps Chinalco on Solar Power

 

Chinalco, the largest aluminum provider in China, announced its first lightweight photovoltaic project to make the most of the exterior surface of buildings to generate solar energy, a thriving practice per carbon peak and carbon neutrality policies and bolsters low-carbon development.

 

Sunman Energy, a developer of the world's first glass-free, lightweight and flexible Panel – eArc, provided the facilities in this project. Replacing glass completely, eArc brings solar power to markets and applications scenarios that were previously impossible.

 

▌Ronbay Technology Establishes Strategic Cooperation with EVE

 

Cathode material manufacturer Ronbay Technology and global lithium battery company EVE will cooperate in multiple areas covering R&D of products and technology, marketing, supply chains and technological innovation on next-generation batteries and materials.

 

▌Sunwoda EVB Showcases Latest Achievement at 2023 World Power Battery Conference

 

Lithium battery maker Sunwoda EVB attended the 2023 World Power Battery Conference. The company showcased various products and its latest technological achievements in electric vehicle batteries, energy storage batteries, automotive electronics, and energy technology, displaying the technological innovation and trend-setting capability of a world-class new energy enterprise.

 

Deep Technology

 

▌Chinese Chipmaker Black Sesame’s C1200 Becomes the First to be Certificated with ISO 26262 ASIL-D

 

Chinese chipmaker Black Sesame’s C1200 became the first to be certificated with ISO 26262 ASIL-D.

 

The certification marks that the Wu-Tang series C1200 chips have met the requirements of ISO 26262:2018 ASIL-D level regarding the automotive functional safety standard and responses to remaining risks caused by random hardware failures. This type of chip also becomes the industry's first automotive cross-domain computing chip to gain the ISO 26262 ASIL-D product certification.

 

▌Innovusion Wins Four Awards

 

Image-grade LiDAR system developer Innovusion was listed as one of the Top 10 Local LiDAR Pre-installation Suppliers in the 2023 Gaogong Ranking in the category of Leading Competitive Supplier for Electric Vehicles.

 

Great Wall Strategy Consulting recognized the company as one of the unicorn enterprises in the China Unicorn Enterprise Research Report 2023.

 

Innovusion was celebrated as one of the "2023 LiDAR Leading Enterprises" by LiDAR Foresight Technology Exhibition and Exchange Conference, and as one of the "2023 China Globalization Emerging Companies Top 50" by 2023 EqualOcean Globalization Summit.

 

▌RhinoAuto Ranks Third in CVPR 2023 Autonomous Driving Challenge

 

RhinoAuto, an innovative autonomous driving computing platform company, and its partner Shanghai Jiao Tong University, won third place in the Online HD Map Construction track, part of the CVPR 2023 Autonomous Driving Challenge.

 

CVPR, one of the top three conferences in computer vision and pattern recognition, is widely recognized for its professionalism, authority and high quality.

 

CVPR 2023 Autonomous Driving Challenge attracted more than 270 world-class teams from 15 countries and regions, including China, the US, and the UK. This year, 2,360 papers were accepted out of 9,155 submitted papers were submitted, with an acceptance rate of 25.78%.