preface
The so-called united means "the power of the united people, the one who gathers the greatest; the unity is different, the multitude is extraordinary."
Nezha Automobile has been doing a lot of good things in the past few years, in terms of sales, a total of 11,009 new cars were delivered in January, an increase of 402% year-on-year, an increase of 8.7% month-on-month; at the capital level, Nezha Automobile recently completed a new round of financing of more than 2 billion yuan, the main investment institutions include CRRC Group's CRRC Fund and Shenzhen Venture Capital, which is state-owned by Shenzhen, etc. It is rumored that the Pre-IPO round financing with a target valuation of about 45 billion yuan or 7 billion US dollars has been launched, and plans to start an IPO in Hong Kong within the year.
01 Ark & Daniel Zhang
Nezha Automobile is a brand built by Hezhong New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., which was established in October 2014 as a joint venture between Beijing Yihuatong Technology Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Tsinghua Yangtze River Delta Research Institute, with a registered capital of nearly 630 million yuan.
The founder & chairman of the company is Fang Yunzhou, who has experienced the positions of deputy general manager of Chery New Energy Project, deputy director of Tsinghua University Energy Conservation and New Energy Vehicle Center, etc., and is currently the main internal, behind-the-scenes research and development; later, the former BAIC New Energy veteran Daniel Zhang joined, responsible for the company's brand and market operation, as the co-founder of the company, currently outside the main.
Fang Yunzhou's background gave Nezha Automobile the label of "Tsinghua Pie". What is so special about the Ark of Fortune?
In 1975, Fang Yunzhou was born in Anhui. In 1998, Fang Yunzhou graduated from the Automotive Department of Hefei University of Technology, and then joined Chery Automobile, which was only established for one year, and it can be said that Chery's new energy business was brought up by Fang Yunzhou. It can be said that Fang Yunzhou has a bit of Wang Chuanfu's shadow on him.
Just joined Chery for three years, Fang Yunzhou is mainly engaged in the research and development of engine accessory systems. In 2001, Fang Yunzhou transferred to the "Clean Energy Vehicle Task Force" established by Chery in 1999 to carry out research and development and testing of electric vehicles.
At the end of 2001, Chery's new energy vehicle research and development project successfully ranked among the national "863" plan.
In March 2003, the first new energy vehicle independently developed by the Chery New Energy Start-up Team of Fang Yunzhou was officially rolled off the production line. From the concept design to the prototype car, it took only more than a year to refresh the record in the field of domestic new energy vehicle research and development.
In 2010, chery clean energy vehicle special group, which has been established for 11 years, was officially transformed into Chery New Energy Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. and became an independent subsidiary of Chery.
In Chery New Energy, Fang Yunzhou served as vice president and director of the hybrid department of Chery Automobile Central Research Institute, in charge of technology research and development.
As early as 2012-2014, Chery New Energy has achieved profitability, reaching hundreds or 70,000 yuan per year, becoming the first profitable new energy company in China.
After 13 years of dormancy in the new energy automobile industry, this new energy vehicle veteran may not be willing to be a twilight horse of the old Ji Futuo, but wants to be a dark horse to guide the trend of intelligent networking and new energy.
Recalling the old entrepreneurial time, Fang Yunzhou said, "At that time, I did not want to do the whole vehicle, mainly wanted to do some technologies of the Internet, and spent two years summarizing the direction of the intelligent development of automobiles such as the Internet and the Internet of Vehicles." However, in the process of actually doing it, through communicating with several OEMs, it was found that automakers do not have such an open mind to cooperate with suppliers. Because, the application of these intelligent networks will involve the core part of automotive technology, deep into the core controller of the car. ”
Before parting, Fang Yunzhou said goodbye to Chery Chairman Yin Tongyue, who smiled and said, "Chery's new energy business is what you started, and you are willing to do it, you think it's so easy to start a business, you see I have white hair now." Fang Yunzhou replied with a smile, "You also founded Chery around 40 years old, and I want to learn from you." ”
When the news of the NDRC's plan to release the qualifications for new car manufacturing reached The ear of Fang Yunzhou, the automobile veteran could not resist and began to think about entering the vehicle industry.
In October 2014, Fang Yunzhou, together with his former friends and former Chery colleagues, formally established United New Energy in Tongxiang, Zhejiang Province, officially opening a "new round" of entrepreneurship and becoming the earliest batch of new car-making forces established in China.
In March 2017, the National Development and Reform Commission issued a reply agreeing to the construction project of 50,000 pure electric passenger cars per year of United New Energy, which means that United New Energy has obtained the 13th invaluable new pure electric vehicle production qualification license.
In terms of new energy vehicle development experience, Fang Yunzhou can be called a god-level figure, from 2001 to now, it has been up to 20 years, such qualifications, extremely rare in the industry. In the past 20 years, from Chery New Energy to Hezhong New Energy, Fang Yunzhou has led and participated in a series of international, national and provincial key research and development projects, including more than ten "863" projects.
While leading the research and development, Fang Yunzhou also actively participates in the planning of national key projects and the preparation of industry standards. For example, he presided over the preparation of the "Anhui New Energy Automobile Industry Technology Roadmap", and also participated in the preparation of the national "Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2011-2020)", as well as the preparation of the implementation plan and guide of the national "863" plan "New Energy Vehicle Major Project".
02 The Road to Capital
Hezhong New Energy has recently completed a new round of financing of more than 2 billion yuan, the main investment institutions include CRRC Fund under CRRC Group and Shenzhen Venture Capital with state-owned background in Shenzhen, etc. This financing is the D+++ round of Nezha Automobile Brand D series financing.
Looking back at last year, in October 2021, Nezha Automobile has completed a D+ round of financing of 4 billion yuan, 360 Group led an investment of 2 billion yuan, AND CCB International, CITIC Securities Investment, Jifu Venture Capital and other follow-up investment; on November 8, 2021, Nezha Automobile and CATL officially signed a strategic agreement, ANDC will participate in the D++ round of financing and strategically invest in Nezha Automobile.
The financing process of Hezhong New Energy is shown in the following table: (Source: Qichacha)
After the completion of the D series financing, the valuation of Nezha Automobile is expected to exceed 25 billion yuan.
It is understood that Nezha Automobile has opened a Pre-IPO round of financing with a target valuation of about 45 billion yuan, but the details of the scale and time of financing are still in preliminary planning and may change. In this regard, United New Energy did not respond to this, but said that it would be announced at the first time.
In terms of equity structure, after the investment of multiple institutions, at present, Hezhong New Energy has 17 large and small shareholders, and it is worth noting that as of November 2021, the shareholding ratio of Fangyunzhou is 1.14%.
The two largest shareholders of Hezhong New Energy are Nanning Minsheng New Energy Industry Investment Partnership and Yichun Jinhe Equity Investment Co., Ltd., which are behind Nanning SASAC and Yichun SASAC.
In particular, it should be pointed out that the shareholding ratio of Nanning Minsheng and Yichun Jinhe Holding Hezhong New Energy is 18.06% and 25.03% respectively.
Like United New Energy, state-owned assets account for the majority, and founders account for the small head, which is relatively rare among several new forces. In fact, behind this reflects the different background of the initial entrepreneurship of United New Energy. Unlike Li Bin and He Xiaopeng, who have started businesses many times and have the founders of the new Internet forces who have been in the background of the Internet bigwigs, with the golden key to start a business, Fang Yunzhou comes from the management position of traditional car companies, and there is a natural disadvantage in capital, and exchanging equity for funds has become the only way.
In terms of IPO, as early as July 23, 2020, Hezhong New Energy Vehicle officially said that it planned to IPO on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in 2021, and since then, there have been many news related to the company's listing.
In fact, in 2022, the second echelon of new forces have begun to accelerate the "catch-up" capital market, frequent actions in terms of IPOs, such as zero-running cars, Gaohe Automobile, the information on the website of the Securities Regulatory Commission shows that it has received zhejiang zero-running technology co., LTD. "overseas initial public offering of shares (including common shares, preferred shares and other stocks and derivative forms of stocks)" approval materials; Gaohe Automobile has also recently reported the news of the IPO.
Judging from the historical financing information of the new car-making forces, the financing scale of Nezha Automobile is after Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal and Weima. However, among the shareholders of Nezha Automobile are the two strong players of CATL and 360. This not only gives Nezha Automobile confidence at the capital level, but also makes up for Nezha Automobile's shortcomings in power batteries and intelligent networking to a certain extent.
As the saying goes, "the hardest car to sell is nothing more than two, the most expensive and the cheapest". At present, several models launched by Nezha Automobile, Nezha U, Nezha V, etc. mainly focus on the low-end market below 100,000 yuan, and the low-end market competition is particularly fierce, but in the end, Nezha Automobile can stand out, which is enough to show its competitiveness.
In terms of sales, Nezha Automobile's sales in 2020: 15,091 units; 2021 sales: 69,674 units, an increase of 4 times, ranking fourth in the list of new forces.
Nezha Automobile delivered 11,009 new cars in January 2022, and has delivered more than 10,000 vehicles in a single month for three consecutive months, second only to Xiaopeng and Ideal, ranking third among the new car-making forces.
Daniel Zhang, co-founder and president of Nezha Automobile, gave a long-term goal: "Before 2025, Nezha Automobile must reach the threshold of 500,000 units of sales (per year). ”
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the three models of Nezha V, Nezha V Pro and Nezha U Pro on sale, Nezha Automobile will also launch the first pure electric car Nezha S this year. It is reported that based on this model, Nezha Automobile has reached cooperation with Huawei, 360, Horizon, SenseTime and other enterprises.
Stepping on the Hot Wheel, this dark horse is going to "make a big fuss" about the car.
Author: Hui Ze Lee