Author | Jia Weizhong
Source | Car selection network
On December 11, "Hive Energy Completed 6 Billion Yuan B+ Round Financing" became a hot spot in the industry. According to statistics, this year, Hive Energy has completed three rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing amount of 19.78 billion yuan. As a new force in batteries, why has Hive Energy gained the favor of capital?
What kind of business is Hive Energy? First of all, it is not yet a public company. The predecessor of Hive Energy is the Power Battery Division of Great Wall Motors. In February 2018, it was separated from the power battery division of Great Wall Motors. Headquartered in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, the company is committed to the research and development, manufacturing and innovation of next-generation battery materials, batteries, modules, PACK, BMS and energy storage technologies.
According to media reports, "Hive Energy completed series A and B rounds of financing in February and July this year, with financing amounts of 3.5 billion yuan and 10.28 billion yuan respectively. Official sources show that "the investors of The B+ round of financing of Hive Energy come from four aspects: industrial chain partners, industrial investment institutions, state-owned asset platforms and some old shareholders." ”
As a new force in the battery industry, why can Honeycomb Energy be recognized by capital? In addition to the background of Great Wall Motors, strong technological innovation ability is an important factor, and Hive Energy has an obvious technical label of "cobalt-free battery + lamination process".
Yang Hongxin, Chairman and CEO of Hive Energy
As the industry knows, cobalt is an important element of ternary lithium batteries, and ternary lithium batteries are the main components of electric vehicles at present. Why does Hive Energy develop cobalt-free batteries against the trend? Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of the company, said: "New energy is not equal to sustainable energy. The cobalt in lithium batteries is very small in global reserves, and only 30% can be used in electric vehicles. So strategically, we must remove cobalt! At the same time, Hive Energy's second-generation L600 short blade lithium iron phosphate battery has completed development and is expected to achieve mass production in Q3 2022, and Tesla and Toyota are currently evaluating cobalt-free batteries. ”
The layout of the industrial chain is very methodical, which should be the second reason why Hive Energy is optimistic about investors. In 2016, Great Wall established a power battery division; in 2017, Hive Energy invested in the lithium mine in Australia and obtained the underwriting right. In 2018, Hive Energy began to develop officially independently.
Hive Energy not only has strong technical strength, layout in the field of upstream raw materials, but also guarantees the sales of batteries. At this year's Chengdu Auto Show, Hive Energy announced the world's first battery pack equipped with a cobalt-free battery, and the first car equipped with this battery pack is the Great Wall Euler Cherry Cat, with a cruising range of 500 to 600 kilometers, which will be put on sale in the fourth quarter of this year. In addition, next year, Great Wall Motors will have two models equipped with cobalt-free batteries on the market. In addition, Yang Hongxin said: "In addition to the early development of cornerstone customers such as Great Wall Motors, BMW and PSA, Hive Energy has also obtained an order for Cobalt-free batteries from Geely Automobile, and will ship supporting shipments to Geely at the end of the year." ”
Therefore, from the perspective of industry, factors such as good birth, strong technological innovation ability, perfect supply chain and smooth sales channels are the reasons why Hive Energy attracts capital to continue to invest. From the investment level, the recent secondary market is optimistic about the battery sector, which is another important reason.
According to media reports: "From December 1 to 8, the cumulative net inflow of northbound funds with long-term allocation funds was 20.2 billion yuan, accounting for about 61% of the total funds." The long-term foreign investment strategy is to buy new energy stocks and sell real estate stocks, and northbound capital allocation funds are basically only around the lithium battery industry chain in the field of new energy. The specific performance is that after the Northbound Fund reduced its holdings in the Ningde Era twice last week, it increased its holdings by 1.9956 million shares on December 8, and the Ningde Era ranked second in the northbound capital investment on that day.
Although Hive Energy is not currently listed, Yang Hongxin revealed: "The company has the basic conditions for declaring the initial listing, and plans to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange of the Science and Technology Innovation Board next year." "2021 is coming to an end, and Before the end of the year, Hive Energy has once again successfully raised funds, indicating that capital is very optimistic about the head parts and components companies with development prospects."
The above is a family statement, welcome to criticize.
(Image source: Internet)