Author: Miao Zheng

Editor: tuya

According to company intelligence expert "Financial Graffiti" News, on February 8, 2021, Horizon received strategic investment from Great Wall Motors (601633.SH). Horizon officials said that the two parties will focus on advanced assisted driving (ADAS), high-level autonomous driving and smart cockpits to jointly explore automotive smart technology, develop market-leading smart car products, and accelerate the research and development of smart cars. and mass production. The parties did not announce the amount of financing.

On February 6, 2021, two days before this strategic investment, Horizon had just announced the acquisition of 2382. HK) strategic investment. The two parties did not announce the amount of strategic investment.

In self-driving car products, cars often require lidar or cameras to collect road surface information. As a chip manufacturer, Horizon does not have complete camera or lidar manufacturing capabilities. Therefore, Sunny Optical's investment in Horizon will strengthen Horizon's competitiveness in the field of autonomous driving. So far, Great Wall Motors, Horizon, and Sunny Optical have formed a complete autonomous driving chain from cars to chips and then to radars.

This financing is Horizon’s third financing in 2021. When the first financing was raised on January 7, 2021, Horizon received US$400 million in Series C+ financing, which was jointly led by Baillie Gifford, Yunfeng Fund, CITIC Industrial Fund, and CATL, and other institutions participated in this round of investment It also includes Aspex Investment, CloudAlpha Tech Fund, Hexuan Capital, Neumann Advisors, Japan's ORIX Group, Shandong Hi-Speed ??Capital, Yingcai Yuan Capital, Yuantai Evergreen Fund and CITIC Construction Investment, etc. Horizon said that the company will mainly use the funds to accelerate the research and development and commercialization process of the new generation of L4/L5 automotive smart chips, as well as to build an open and win-win partner ecosystem.

In addition, at the end of 2020, Horizon completed Series C financing with a financing amount of 150 million yuan, funded by Wuyuan Capital (formerly Morningside Capital), Hillhouse Ventures, Capital Today co-led the investment.

At present, Horizon is the only technology company in China that has mass production of car-grade smart chips, and has formed an "intelligent driving+" covering the L2 to L3 levels. The complete product layout of the "smart cockpit" chip solution. As we enter 2021, the shortage of chips in the automotive industry has become increasingly severe due to technological upgrading. Horizon's deep cultivation of automotive chips has gained it considerable social and capital influence.

On February 5, 2021, the day before Horizon signed a strategic investment agreement with Sunny Optical, Horizon announced a project called "Autonomous Driving Status Detection The "Method, Device, System and Electronic Equipment" patent involves the field of vehicle technology. The patent was applied for on July 30, 2019, and the application publication number is CN112326258A.

This patent covers a lot of content, such as obtaining the operating status of the vehicle and detecting the equipment information status of the vehicle, which are necessary for the engineering and commercialization of autonomous driving technology. equipment technology.

Not only that, Horizon’s star product, the car-grade smart chip Journey 3, uses TSMC’s 16nm FFC process. This process is not currently the highest-standard process in the world. At the same time, domestic chip foundry companies, such as SMIC, can also complete chip production using this process. This also means that Journey 3 will not have the dilemma of being unable to tape-out the design and unable to mass-produce the tape-out, which is a good thing for companies to expand product sales.

But in contrast, although Horizon has few strong competitors in the domestic field, many overseas chip giants such as Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Intel are entering the automotive chip field. Take Intel as an example. Since Intel acquired Mobileye, the world's top autonomous driving solution company, Intel has formed a dedicated autonomous driving alliance to achieve a seamless connection between chip companies and car companies, with the ultimate goal of forming a strong focus on autonomous driving. Complete control of the industrial chain.

In order to meet the challenge, Horizon will soon launch the flagship Journey 5 chip for L3/L4 level autonomous driving, based on the automotive functional safety (ISO 26262) ASIL D level product development process system It is built with 96 TOPS of AI computing power and supports 16 camera perception calculations. From a product perspective, Journey 5 has reached the top level in the industry.

Automobiles are representatives of heavy assets and heavy industries, and the design industry chain is extremely complex. The establishment of the autonomous driving alliance is tantamount to building a high wall for Horizon to create a waterfall effect, thereby preventing startups like Horizon from penetrating into the core of the industry chain. Therefore, if Horizon wants to break through, the best way is to find more independent brands for cooperation.