The first closing of The D round of financing was completed at a valuation of US$8.5 billion

After a year, Xiaoma Zhixing once again spread the news of financing.

Today, Xiaoma Zhixing officially announced the completion of the first delivery of the D round of financing. After the completion of the financing, its overall valuation reached US$8.5 billion, and the valuation of this round is about 65% higher than the previous round of financing.

Xiaoma Zhixing said that the financing funds will be used for team expansion, technology research and development, robotaxi and self-driving truck (Robotruck) fleet expansion and global testing and operation, autonomous driving technology mass production and commercial deployment and other business areas.

What does Series D financing mean?

Financing is undoubtedly the most important means of subsistence for autonomous driving companies that are still difficult to commercialize on a large scale. The financing round and scale of financing reflect to a certain extent the recognition of the technical strength and commercial prospects of an autonomous driving company.

Nandu Intelligent AutoMotive Industry Ecology Research Group once counted that as of November last year, of the 393 investment events in autonomous driving companies in the country, a total of 278 financing events occurred before the B round, accounting for 70.74%, and 383 investment events occurred before the D round of financing events, accounting for 97.5%.

This data shows that only a very small number of domestic autonomous driving companies have completed the D round and the D round of financing, and the completion of the first round of financing of the D round of Xiaoma Zhixing shows that it is entering the door of the D round of financing.

At present, only domestic autonomous driving companies such as Tucson Future, Zhijia Technology, and Zhongmu Technology have publicly stated that they have completed the D round of financing.

"Technical prowess is a key factor in our investor support. In the past two years, our core technical indicators have been greatly improved, and in most scenarios, the 'virtual driver' of Xiaoma Zhixing can match or even surpass human drivers," for this financing, Xiaoma Zhixing co-founder and CTO Lou Tiancheng summed it up.

Globally, the current financing level is comparable to the level of xiaoma zhixing autonomous driving startups, mainly nuro in the unmanned delivery business. After completing a $600 million Series D funding round last November, the company's valuation rose to $8.6 billion.

Like other industries, higher valuations of self-driving startups can lead to more development opportunities, but also many hidden risks.

In the view of Xu Da, CEO of Shunwei Capital, there are two major risks in the overvaluation of startups.

First, higher valuations will put more pressure on founders and teams. In general, the company as a whole hopes that the new round of financing will be larger than in the past.

In addition, startups mostly distribute options to employees, and if the company's valuation grows too fast, it may cause the company to generate multiple millionaires in the future. Teams that achieve wealth freedom are likely to choose to leave or start their own businesses. Whether the company's team can continue to maintain combat effectiveness under such circumstances is a question mark.

However, he also acknowledges that having a higher valuation during a period of rapid market development will bring many benefits to the company's development.

As far as Pony Zhixing, who is in the autonomous driving industry, it is necessary to maintain a high valuation. At present, the autonomous driving industry is still in a period of fierce competition, and it is necessary to attract more excellent talents to join and continuously improve autonomous driving technology, and higher valuations are a major accelerator to promote the company's technological development.

In addition, Li Hengyu, head of Xiaoma Zhixing Truck, once revealed to The New Intelligent Driving that the scale of autonomous trucks is expected to expand to more than 100 in 2022. The increase in the number of self-driving trucks requires a lot of money, and for The current difficult to profitable Xiaoma Zhixing, financing is a commonly used means of capital supplementation, which can provide a large amount of funds for its business development in a short period of time.

Therefore, the completion of the D round of financing is one of the few options to support the development of Xiaoma Zhixing's business and even to become profitable.

After the completion of the financing, Lawrence Steyn, CFO of Pon Chi Heng, also said: "The company's financial position is very stable, providing a solid foundation for the development of Pon Chi Heng in the next few years until we start the process of large-scale commercialization." ”

The commercialization concept of autonomous driving

At the 17th SuperCar Forum held recently, Zhang Ning, vice president of Xiaoma Zhixing and head of the Beijing R&D Center, proposed that he hoped to gradually expand the pilot of autonomous driving commercialization services this year.

He said that at present, Xiaoma Zhixing provides dozens of Robotaxi services in the core area of Yizhuang in Beijing, operating from 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. In its early days, the charging standard was 4.9 yuan per price, that is, only 4.9 yuan was charged to passengers regardless of distance, which was mainly aimed at attracting more people to experience the Robotaxi service.

Zhang Ning also added that after two months of continuous operation, in the user reviews with a full score of 5 points, the average score of Xiaoma Zhixing was 4.91 points. "It's been a very good feedback."

In the course of the operation of Robotaxi, Xiaoma Zhixing once charged a user the original price due to a mistake, and when Xiaoma Zhi provided compensation services to the user after acting, the other party refused because of its technology and brand euphemism, and expressed its willingness to pay for the service at the original price. In Zhang Ning's view, this certain degree shows that its Robotaxi service has been recognized by users and has accumulated certain operational experience.

Therefore, Zhang Ning suggested from the perspective of user use that he hopes to provide a wide range of autonomous driving travel services in the future, as well as invest more transportation capacity to meet the needs of consumers with a more market-oriented pricing mechanism.

From the perspective of enterprises, he believes that cooperation between autonomous driving and car companies will be the trend.

Zhang Ning believes that unlike the early days of each family to study technology behind closed doors, with the expansion of the scale of users, the future will definitely enter the sinking market. Therefore, he hopes that autonomous driving companies will carry out in-depth cooperation with car companies in the future, using the mature supply chain mechanism of car companies to reduce costs and create vehicle-grade products. At the same time, create a virtual driver to provide a better travel experience for all users.

In fact, in the past year, Xiaoma Zhixing has achieved many milestones in the commercialization and mass production of autonomous driving in the field of passenger cars and commercial vehicles.

In terms of passenger cars, as mentioned above, Xiaoma Zhixing has obtained the pilot commercialization of autonomous driving travel services in Yizhuang, Beijing, which can provide paid autonomous driving travel services within the scope of the service.

In terms of commercial vehicles, after obtaining the first batch of autonomous driving heavy truck licenses in Beijing last July, Xiaoma Zhixing not only successfully completed the first public road test of domestic L4 autonomous driving heavy trucks, but also established a joint venture with Sinotrans to build a smart logistics capacity platform with automatic driving technology as the core.

In December last year, Xiaoma Zhika has been recognized by several commercial operation partners, and has completed the transportation of 16,400 tons of freight and nearly 50,000 kilometers of commercial operation.

However, behind the glory, the departure of many core personnel of Xiaoma Zhika and the suspension of the california full driverless test have brought some resistance to its business advancement.

Whether it is passenger cars or commercial vehicles, the commercialization process of Xiaoma Zhixing has made great progress in one year, and it seems that it is only one foot away from the large-scale commercialization.

The completion of the D round of financing by Xiaoma Zhixing will add a lot of fuel to its commercial exploration.

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