Portfolio Updates 

 

▌NIO Capital Portfolio Companies Named as Specialized and Sophisticated ‘Little Giant’ Enterprises

 

Seven NIO Capital portfolio companies have been included in the fifth batch of national-level specialized and sophisticated "little giant" enterprises by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of China.

 

They are GPU developer Biren Technology, carbon fiber manufacturer Feize Composites, Hubei Ronbay, a fully-owned subsidiary of lithium-ion battery cathode materials producer Ronbay Technology, battery recycling enterprise Ruilong Tech, industrial robot producer Standard Robots, and autonomous driving companies Inceptio Technology and EACON.

 

 Automobile and Logistics

 

▌Inceptio Technology Forms Strategic Cooperation with Uton Logistics

 

Autonomous truck developer Inceptio Technology and third-party logistics solution provider Uton have signed a strategic cooperation under which the companies have established a demonstration route featuring self-driving vehicles.

 

The two companies will set up more long-haul routes for autonomous heavy trucks to transport cargo.

 

New Energy

 

▌Sunman Energy Connects Shanghai Solar Project to the Grid

Sunman Energy, a maker of glass-free, lightweight and flexible solar panels, has completed a 3MW project in Shanghai. The company used its eArc panels to cover the roof of a factory that could not support conventional glass modules. This way, Sunman Energy protected the roof from water damage and generated clean energy on a challenging site.

 

▌PCG Power’s First Demonstration Project Launched

PCG Power, a company that provides energy management and service since 2022, has installed an 11.12MW distributed power project for Opple, a lamp maker, in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. The project will produce 12 million kWh of green power for Opple every year for 25 years. This will help Opple save coal, cut carbon emissions, cool down its plants, reduce grid power use, and avoid production interruptions.

 

Compared with the same volume of thermal power, PCG Power’s project will save 3,606 tons of standard coal and reduce 9,448 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, equivalent to planting 518,000 trees per year, which will support Opple’s energy efficiency and sustainability goals.

 

▌AlphaESS Establishes a Subsidiary in South Africa

 

AlphaESS, an energy storage solution and service provider, has set up a subsidiary in South Africa, marking the enterprise’s new milestone in Africa. The company will meet users' diversified needs in the African market while accelerating the energy consumption transformation and sustainable development.

 

▌WeLion New Energy Starts to Build Solid-state Battery Project Phase II

 

Beijing WeLion New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. has begun the project's second stage to produce solid-state lithium-ion batteries in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province. The second stage covers about 497 mu (33.13 hectares) and will cost RMB10.9 billion. When finished, it will make 20GWh solid-state lithium-ion batteries annually and earn RMB22.1 billion in revenue. The project is based on the solid-state battery patents and technologies of the Renewable Energy Key Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

 

Frontier Technology

 

▌Rhino Closes New Financing Round

 

Autonomous driving chip developer Rhino, known as Huixi in China, has raised hundreds of millions of yuan from investors led by Shanghai-listed automotive electronic product provider Jingwei HiRain.

 

Jingwei HiRain and Rhino have also signed a strategic cooperation agreement to develop and mass-produce advanced driver assistance solutions based on domestic high-performance SoC (System on Chip). Such solutions rely less on high-definition maps but more on the perception capability of vehicles.

 

▌CIX Technology Joins OpenKylin to Speed Up Developing Arm PC Ecosystem

 

CIX Technology, a chip startup that makes computer CPUs using the ARM architecture, has become a member of openKylin, a non-governmental organization that aims to build an open-source community of desktop operating system through collaboration and sharing. CIX will leverage its technology and resources to work with openKylin partners to standardize the hardware and software of Arm PC.

 

▌Black Sesame Technologies Teams Up With HSAE

 

Semiconductor startup Black Sesame Technologies has signed a strategic cooperation deal with HSAE, a leading Chinese company specialized in manufacturing automotive electronic products. Black Sesame and HSAE will co-develop autonomous driving and parking domain-controlling platform based on the semiconductor firm’s Huashan-2 A1000 chips.