However, with the liberalization of our environment at the end of last year, the first "investment thawing" vehicle brand in 2023 was actually the extremely krypton car that Geely Group supported at the beginning. It is reported that on February 13 this year, Krypton Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. announced the completion of Series A financing of $750 million, with a post-investment valuation of $ Kloc-0/300 million, which has exceeded the market value of XPeng Motors of $8 billion.
Investors are not just "capital investment"
It is understood that this round of financing is invested by five eco-enterprises, namely Amnon Shashua, founder and CEO of Autopilot technology company Mobileye, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd., Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Trading Fund and Quzhou Xinanzhi Creation Fund.
Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. is not only a long-term strategic partner of Krypton, but also increased investment and further deepened cooperation in this round. As early as August, 20021,Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. participated in the Pre-A financing of Krypton automobile. Krypton Space said that the above three companies will help Krypton Space integrate its rich industrial resources and help it further expand in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. Among them, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., also known as "Wang Ning", officially released 00 1 and * * * on June, 2023, with a total of four 2023 models. The 2023 WE version of the optional battery life package upgrades the battery to 140kWh Kirin battery, equipped with silicon carbide technology rear motor, and the comprehensive battery life reaches 1032km. In addition to the blessing of the power battery giant, Amnon Shashua, the founder and CEO of Mobileye, has also received much attention from the outside world.
In fact, when we clarify the identities of these five investors and their respective industry positions, we naturally understand that this round of strategic financing has not only been blessed by real capital resources, but also combined with the investment of industrial resources, doubling the road for the future.
Take Professor Amnon Shashua, founder and CEO of Mobileye as an example. From 65438 to 0999, Professor Amnon Shashua founded Mobileye in Israel. In the following ten years, under the leadership of Amnon Shashua, it grew rapidly with mature assisted driving solutions, and was officially listed in 20 14, with a market value of 8 billion US dollars, becoming a well-deserved "leader" in autonomous driving chips. In 20 17, Intel merged it at the price of153 billion US dollars, which shocked the entire autonomous driving industry.
Long-term technology accumulation and Intel's brand endorsement have enabled Mobileye to continue to maintain its position as a global leader in autonomous driving. The data shows that at present, Mobileye's assisted driving solution has landed about 800 models, and the shipment of EyeQ chips exceeds 65.438+0.25 billion. At its peak, Mobileye's market share exceeded 70%, and it was called "mobile main engine factory, armored Mobileye" by the automobile industry.
At that time, in early 2022, Krypton Space, which was established less than one year ago, announced that it had reached a deepening strategic partnership with Mobileye. The two sides jointly announced that the world's first consumer-grade intelligent driving electric vehicle with L4 intelligent driving capability will be jointly launched in 2024. Not long ago, at the 2023 CES exhibition held in Las Vegas, USA, Krypton announced that the NZP high-speed autonomous navigation assistance system jointly launched with Mobileye will officially launch the pioneer user test.
In addition, "Wang Ning" of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. who participated in the second round is also an "old friend" of Krypton. This additional investment is the embodiment of deepening the cooperative relationship between the two. In August, 2022, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. and Krypton * * * announced that Krypton 009 will soon become the first model of Kirin battery under Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., and Krypton 00 1 will become the world's first model equipped with Kirin 1000 km battery. It broke the situation that the latest battery technology in the past was more "enjoyed first" by new forces such as Wei Xiaoli.
In fact, as a new generation of power battery products of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., "Kirin Battery" undoubtedly needs a more advanced and open vehicle platform to fully release the energy efficiency of Kirin battery. As a new energy architecture with the largest bandwidth and the highest efficiency in China, the vast sky architecture carried by krypton products integrates the new three-electricity concepts of electric drive, electric management and electric ecology, and realizes efficient and cloud-based data management of batteries, electric energy and heat energy.
In addition to the above-mentioned two investors who are strongly related to the "new generation car", the addition of Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Trading Fund and Quzhou Xinanzhi Manufacturing Fund will also help Kyrgyzstan to integrate rich industrial resources and further improve its industrial ecology. Yuexiu Group is a first-class state-owned enterprise under Guangzhou State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). It has invested in a number of intelligent networked automobile industrial chains, such as millimeter-wave radar, wafer manufacturing, car networking and visual algorithms, and has obvious integration advantages. Ningbo Trade Fund and Quzhou Xin 'anzhi Fund, as local state-owned capital investment and operation platforms, have high capital concentration.
Why krypton?
Back to the last article, although the spread of "chill" has been covered up by the noise of various automobile media, the OEM has undoubtedly felt a deeper "chill" in the past statistics.
According to statistics, in 20 17, there were more than 70 new investment projects in new energy vehicles nationwide, with a planned total investment of 450 billion yuan and a planned production capacity of more than 1 1 10,000 vehicles, which was also the craziest year for new energy vehicles. By 2022, the number of financing events will drop to 40, and the financing amount will be about 80 billion yuan. The capital market has nothing to do with the real value of the company. The inherent logic of the capital market is the relationship between supply and demand between those who have capital and those who need it. An excellent company should concentrate all its resources on what the company needs to do most urgently, and concentrate its talents on the research direction that it should spend the most energy on.
Officially, Krypton can win a number of "big bosses" investment this time. Perhaps the reason why Krypton is favored by investors is closely related to its own endowment advantages, including products, technology, customer service, business model and many other aspects, especially in the dimensions of brand premium, cost control, gross profit level and other financial inputs, Krypton has great potential. However, in Bian Xiao's view, in the cold market environment, no investor can eat "pie". The simplest logic of capital and extremely clumsy cars running in both directions is that extremely clumsy cars can "play" in the market, and they can play very much.
Taking Krypton 00 1 as an example, about 72,000 vehicles were delivered in 2022, and the average order amount exceeded 336,000 yuan, which kept the sales champion of China brand pure electric vehicles above 300,000 yuan. By June 2023, 65438+1October 3 1, the cumulative delivery of krypton gas exceeded 80,000 vehicles. The model was delivered within one month, BBA took 10 years, Tesla took 9 years and Krypton 00 1 only took one year.
Compared with the past year, "Wei Xiaoli" has been labeled as "sales stall, crown lost", and it is undoubtedly stronger to go hand in hand with conservative investors in high-end sales and product positioning.
Cheyou observation: the weather vane of investors, rejecting "pie" and "story"
With the withdrawal of state subsidies for new energy this year, the new energy market has officially moved from policy guidance to market guidance, and the luxury car market structure will be further rewritten. China's high-end luxury pure electric brand represented by Krypton will usher in a historic development opportunity. In this context, Krypton once again won the blessing of industrial capital, and once again verified its strong comprehensive strength and market potential.
In addition, the success of Krypton's A round of financing will not only help Krypton to develop rapidly and realize IPO. At the same time, it also played a role as a weather vane for the automobile market. This year, the new energy market will show the strength of new energy brands of traditional automobile companies, which will bring greater competitive pressure to Wei Xiaoli.
This article is from Cheyou Observation, the author of Che Yi, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author if reproduced in any form. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.