Source: 21st Century Business Review Reporter: Qin Yi Zhu Yashi
Editor 丨 鄢子為
Wang Chuanfu invested in 19 companies in two years, sweeping away high-tech manufacturing industries
On March 29, BYD released its financial report, increasing its investment in the associated company to 3.5 billion yuan and the investment in the joint venture to 570 million yuan.
BYD, a 700 billion market value aircraft carrier, has been self-sufficient for more than a decade and has taken a highly vertical technical route. Chairman Wang Chuanfu once used the analogy of "fish farming theory", "BYD has a technical 'fish pond', chips, electric vehicles, rail transit, etc. are the big fish in the 'fish pond'." ”
Now, Wang Chuanfu has changed the attitude of "building cars behind closed doors" and introduced more catfish to the technology pool.
The "21CBR" reporter checked public information and found that from 2020 to the end of 2021, BYD invested in a number of companies involved in semiconductor design and manufacturing, raw material research and development, such as BGI Beidou and Xiangtan Electrochemical. Overall, BYD does not like "cross-border", and external investment focuses on high-end manufacturing enterprises related to new energy vehicles, chips and batteries.
Wang Chuanfu invested in these companies, both the consideration of supply chain security, but also the need to make up for shortcomings.
1) Denza new energy vehicles
Wang Chuanfu intends to pave the way for the high-end of the brand.
The continuous increase in capital of Denza new energy vehicles is one of the most concerned by BYD's investment actions.
In 2010, BYD and Mercedes-Benz automaker Daimler established a joint venture to establish Denza New Energy Vehicles, each holding 50% of the shares. Before 2018, BYD and Daimler continued to transfuse blood for Denza, jointly increasing their capital 7 times, and the proportion of equity remained unchanged.
At the end of 2021, Denza New Energy will increase its capital by 1 billion yuan, with BYD and Daimler participating together. According to people familiar with the matter, after the completion of the capital increase, the two sides intend to adjust dextile equity to 9:1, with BYD holding 90%.
The industry's view is that BYD Holding Denza is to expand the product matrix and is in line with the action of entering the high-end market.
Auto analyst Zhang Xiang believes that Denza has undertaken some of Daimler's resources and market experience, focusing on high-end cars. "After BYD wins the controlling stake, it will add wings to the new energy vehicle track, and it can also use this to make the international market bigger and stronger."
On March 29, BYD introduced in the financial report that in 2022, the company will further expand the high-end market and launch high-end brands, and the price is expected to be 50-1 million yuan. "In the future, BYD's automotive business will be composed of four sections: Dynasty.com, Ocean.com, Denza and high-end brands. BYD's product matrix will become more and more perfect. ”
2) Sagitar Juchuang
BYD has a broken leg "automatic driving", and Wang Chuanfu wants to connect it.
At the end of 2021, BYD and Sagitar Reached a cooperation and participated in its round of financing of 2.4 billion yuan.
Founded 7 years ago, Sagitar Juchuang is the head player of lidar systems, providing downstream car companies with three major products: lidar hardware, perception software and chips.
In the past, lidar mostly relied on component stacking to improve performance. Sagitar Juchuang creatively uses the MEMS technology route to improve product performance while being smaller.
In 2021, solid-state lidar M1 is a representative product of Sagitar Juchuang, with a volume of only 1/4 of the 128-line traditional mechanical radar. It won orders for more than 40 models that year.
3) Horizon
Horizon is a rising star in the autonomous driving chip industry.
In February 2021, Horizon C3 round of financing exceeded 2.2 billion yuan, BYD participated, and a few days later, the two sides finalized cooperation.
Horizon has been established for 7 years and raised 13 rounds of financing, attracting the participation of many professional institutions and industrial capital.
Horizon commercialization process is fast, has realized the front-loading mass production of automotive intelligent chips, and obtained more than 40 front-loading mass-production projects, saicid motor and Great Wall Motors are its customers.
Horizon's strategy is to do Tier 2 (supplier) and not steal the OEMs' business. BYD needs such a partner.
"Horizon uses the 'chip + algorithm + tool chain' as the basis platform for the opening up of the underlying technology, which will help BYD build a safe and reliable intelligent networked car in the future." The horizon is indicated to 21CBR.
4) BGI Beidou
BGI Beidou can be regarded as a potential stock in the field of chip manufacturing.
The company is engaged in the design, development and sales of navigation and positioning chips, and is the only chip manufacturer in Chinese mainland to be selected for ABI Research research reports for two consecutive years.
It has developed and mass-produced a multi-system multi-frequency high-precision SoC chip, which can be applied to the new generation of Beidou-3 signal system. In 2019, BGI Beidou and Huawei HiSilicon were listed on the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Bureau (GSA) Annual Core Device Manufacturer List.
5) Copper Bo Technology
In February this year, BYD acquired a stake in Tongbo Technology, obtaining 6.44% of the latter's shares, ranking seventh largest shareholder.
The "21CBR" reporter found that BYD strengthened the "special right to speak" for some investment targets and retained the seat of the major shareholder.
Jiangxi Tongbo Technology is one of them. Copper foil is a key material for the anode of lithium batteries. As a producer of electrolytic copper foil and lithium battery related materials, tongbo technology is self-evident in its strategic significance to BYD.
Since last year, leading battery companies such as Cataline Times, Hive Energy, and Yiwei Lithium Energy have successively taken the initiative by investing in lithium battery copper foil enterprises and jointly building copper foil projects.
"As a core battery manufacturer, BYD 'armed' the lithium battery copper foil supply chain in advance to further create a closed loop of the industrial chain." A new energy automobile industry practitioner said.
BYD's investment is very discerning. Tongbo Technology's annual revenue has grown from more than 100 million yuan in 2018 to nearly 1.8 billion yuan, and its founders recently said that revenue will reach 6 billion yuan in 2022.
6) Zhida Technology
In February this year, BYD invested in Shanghai Zhida Technology, holding 3.8% of the shares, ranking the eighth largest shareholder.
Zhida Technology is engaged in the research and development of intelligent charging products for new energy vehicles. Since its establishment, it has developed and iterated six series of cogeneration charging piles and charging operation service platforms. It was also selected into the list of the third batch of specialized new "little giant" enterprises of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, signed more than 60 car company brands, and the market share of private charging piles ranked first.
Zhang Xiang believes that BYD's investment in external supply chains is gradual. "In the future, BYD is expected to increase its shareholding in these targets and make financial consolidations."
7) Lead film
Pilot Film is a thin metal materials technology company with more than 1.2 billion series of financing, led by BYD.
The company manufactures sputtering targets and evaporation materials for chip manufacturing in the fields of display, photovoltaics, semiconductors, precision optics, data storage and glass.
The investment in pilot films will help BYD integrate the industrial chain, increase synergy effects, and ensure supply chain security.
8) Zhonghui core light
BYD has also invested in mobile phone chip companies.
In September last year, Zhonghui Xinguang, which received hundreds of millions of yuan of financing from the C+ round, mainly includes chip design, chip manufacturing, optoelectronic device manufacturing, optoelectronic device sales, and electronic special material manufacturing.
Many of Zhonghui Xinguang's products have been adopted by Huawei, Honor, Sharp, Meizu and other mobile phone manufacturers.
9) Core Horizon microelectronics
Core Vision Microelectronics' Series B financing has also been invested by BYD.
Core Vision is a company with chip-scale photoelectric converter device design and single-photon detection imaging technology, mainly engaged in 1D and 3D ToF sensing chips based on single-photon detection. This chip is widely used in sweepers, drones, mobile phones, smart glasses and autonomous driving lidar.
The industry generally recognizes the strength of Core Vision, and its B round of capital includes CATL times and Goertek shares. In 2020, it also received investment from Huawei Hubble.
BYD also said in its financial report that it will continue to use strategic investment as a link in the future to accelerate the creation of industrial ecology and deepen the technology moat.
"For strategic defensive reasons, BYD will not miss out on the investment of these companies." It is stronger in verticals, but it is impossible to cover all aspects. Auto analyst Zheng Yi told 21CBR.
In Zheng Yi's view, the first purpose of Wang Chuanfu's upstream and downstream investment is to avoid the situation of insufficient production capacity or parts supply.
Secondly, through investment, increasing the integration of batteries, motors, and electronic control systems, and giving full play to the advantages of integration, production costs can be reduced and technical thresholds can be raised.
From pre-manufacturing raw materials to late-endurance charging, BYD holds multiple trump cards, covering the entire process from automobile production to use.
At the end of 2021, BYD held the first annual meeting of CEOs of investment enterprises, and Wang Chuanfu personally stood on the platform. According to people familiar with the matter, there are about 20 companies participating in the meeting.
This sends a signal to the outside world that Boss Wang personally dismantled the vertical integration model he had created, and BYD was moving towards opening up.
Recently, Boss Wang said at the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum that the automotive industry is still facing severe challenges such as the intensification of the epidemic, the soaring price of raw materials, and the instability of the supply chain. Uncertainty has increased, and external investment is also one of BYD's risk diversification operations. Caption: Wang Chuanfu Source: BYD's official Weibo
Copyright Notice: In addition to publishing original articles, the manufacturing industry is also committed to the exchange and sharing of excellent articles. Reprint must indicate the source and author of the article; please reprint authorization please leave a message at the end of the article or in the background. All rights reserved, violators will be investigated.