GAC incubated and Tencent participated, giving birth to a new unicorn of power batteries

【Lieyun Network (WeChat: ilieyun) Beijing] Reported on April 9 (Text/Wang Fei)

Recently, Super Fast Charging Lithium Battery Developer Juwan Technology Research Successfully Completed A Round of Financing, with a post-investment valuation of 8 billion yuan, becoming a new unicorn.

This is a technology enterprise incubated by GAC Group with an investment of 60 million yuan. Since its establishment, it has only been a year and a half.

It is worth mentioning that the layout of the power battery industry by Internet technology giants has become a new trend. Previously, Xiaomi has invested in ZhongxinHang, Hive Energy, Ganfeng Lithium Battery, Zhuhai Guanyu, Weilan New Energy, and Huawei Hubble has also invested in Weilan New Energy and Zhongke Hai Sodium. The same is true of Tencent's investment in the A round of financing of Juwan Technology Research.

The reason is the explosive growth ushered in by the power battery industry. According to the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan" (2021-2035), by 2025, the sales volume of new energy vehicles and new vehicles will reach about 20% of the total sales of new vehicles. The power battery accounts for about 40% of the entire cost of new energy vehicles, and its market development prospects can be described as very broad.

In addition to Juwan Technology Research, at present, in the field of power batteries, the domestic battery giant Ningde Era has also entered the Tesla supply chain in the second half of 2020 to supply lithium iron phosphate batteries; BYD also launched a new generation of lithium iron phosphate batteries in March 2020, from the vast majority of early new energy passenger cars using ternary lithium to "flexible production according to customer needs".

The first president of the GAC Research Institute is the chairman of the board, and the planned production capacity will supply 120,000 units

As early as July 2014, GAC Research Institute set up a research team of advanced energy storage materials, mainly engaged in the research and development of electric vehicle energy storage devices and their systems. After five years of research and development, the functional test of the super fast-charging battery sample was successfully completed in 2019, and the "XFC ultra-fast battery" developed by the "XFC extreme battery" was basically matured the following year.

After a feasibility study, GAC Group decided to make the advanced energy storage materials team the first incubation object. In September 2020, led by GAC Group, the pilot technical team of GAC Capital, GAC Research Institute and the third-party strategic partner shareholding platform jointly funded the establishment of Guangzhou Juwan Technology Research Co., Ltd., focusing on the research and development, production, sales and service of super fast charging power batteries and a new generation of breakthrough energy accumulators and their systems.

At present, Juwan Technology Research Institute mainly focuses on graphene, relays, three-dimensional structures, spiral feeders, sheet structures, collection points and other technical fields for patent layout, has published 12 patent applications, invention patents accounted for nearly 60%. Among them, patents with high market value include "three-dimensional structural graphene and its carbon-derived catalytic pyrolysis preparation method" and so on.

Juwan Technology Research focuses on the research and development of cutting-edge technologies such as graphene

Huang Xiangdong, Chairman and CTO of Juwan Technology Research Institute, is a professor and doctoral supervisor of South China University of Technology, a fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, and the first president of the GAC Research Institute; Dr. Pei Feng, the legal representative and CEO, was the former director of the Pilot Technology Department and the New Energy Department of the GAC Research Institute, presided over the research and development of new energy vehicles and three electric parts, and won the China Automotive Industry Science and Technology Progress Award.

In April 2021, Juwan Technology Research co-ordinated Juwan XFC (eXtreme Fast Charge) extremely fast battery technology debuted at the 2021 GAC Science and Technology Day. Just five months later, on September 30, 2021, GAC AION V Plus Starcraft Pure Electric SUV was officially launched, and the "70 Super Fast Charging Edition" of the seven products was equipped with the Juwan XFC Extreme Speed Battery "3C Edition" (that is, the 3X rate battery), with a 0-80% charging time of 15 minutes and a 30-80% charging time of 10 minutes, which marked that the "XFC Extreme Battery Technology" developed by Juwan Technology Research Institute has officially achieved mass production.

Juwan XFC ultra-fast battery "6C version" (that is, 6 times rate battery) 0-80% charging time up to 8 minutes, 30-80% charging time up to 5 minutes. At present, the 6C version of the Juwan XFC extreme speed battery has been equipped with GAC AION V model, and on September 30, 2021, it obtained the national announcement of the whole vehicle, and is expected to be officially launched on the market in 2022.

It is worth mentioning that Juwan Technology Research institute has been actively building and laying out the production capacity of batteries and battery packs, the battery pack factory in Nansha, Guangzhou, has been fully put into operation, and plans to build a production base of about 500 acres in Guangzhou, and it is expected that the first phase of the project will be completed in 2023, with a production capacity of 8GWh, corresponding to the supply of 120,000 vehicles.

According to Dr. Pei Feng, Juwan Technology Research has been in contact with other automakers, and its battery products have plans to be used in other car manufacturers other than GAC.

Annual round of financing: Tencent Investment holds 2.26% of the shares, Ma Huateng benefits from 1.36% of the shares

Since its establishment, Juwan Technology Research Institute has completed three rounds of financing at the pace of one round of financing per year.

In addition to the initial establishment, GAC Group invested 60 million yuan in incubation funds. Today, Juwan Technology Research has successfully completed the Pre-A round and A round of financing.

In July 2021, Juwan Technology Research completed a multi-hundreds of millions of yuan Pre-A round of financing, which was jointly led by GF Securities subsidiaries GF Xinde, GF Qian and Guangzhou Financial Holdings Fund, and followed by BOC Yuecai, Guangzhou Fund and Potential Energy Capital. At that time, Dr. Pei Feng, CEO of Juwan Technology Research Institute, said that this round of financing will be mainly used for product research and development and mass production introduction, as well as the pre-construction of Juwan's first production base.

On April 1 this year, at the media communication meeting of the annual report of GAC Group, Chairman Zeng Qinghong revealed that Juwan Technology Research completed a round of financing with a valuation of 8 billion yuan, becoming a new unicorn.

On April 6, Juwan Technical Research Completed the Corresponding Industrial and Commercial Changes. The A-round investors include Guangzhou Suikai Equity Investment, Hanhui Investment, Shengjing Venture, Guangzhou Financial Holdings, Tencent Investment, Qiande Fund, Borun Capital, Guangzhou City Investment, Nanyue Fund, and Hualian Huiyuan.

According to the equity penetration chart of Tianyancha, Guangzhou Juwan Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) holds 35.88% of the equity of Juwan Technology Research, GAC Capital holds 19.39% of the shares, GAC Group holds 16.49% of the shares, and Guangzhou Tuoxin Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) holds 8.14% of the shares.

Huang Xiangdong, as the suspected actual controller, directly holds 0.73% of the shares, in addition, he also indirectly holds part of the equity of Juwan Technology Research through Guangzhou Tuoxin Investment Partnership (limited partnership) and Guangzhou Juwan Investment Partnership (limited partnership). Pei Feng also directly holds a 0.73% stake in Juwan Technology Research.

It is worth mentioning that as a series A investor, Tencent Investment holds 2.26% of Juwan Technology Research. As a result, Ma Huateng also enjoys a 1.36% ultimate beneficiary share.

Internal incubation + investment and financing empowerment + expansion of the circle of friends, GAC accelerates the layout of "new four modernizations"

At the end of 2019, GUANGZHOU AUTOMOBILE Group announced its transformation into a technology-based enterprise and accelerated the layout of the "new four modernizations".

It is in this context that Juwan Technology Research Institute was incubated by GAC Group through its R&D hub, GAC Research Institute.

On March 31 this year, at the media communication meeting released by gac group's annual report, chairman Zeng Qinghong also mentioned that the group is promoting the capitalization operation of GAC Ean, Ruqi Travel, and Juwan Technology Research, "The whole direction of reform, we hope to build a more market-oriented, more scientific and technological, more open GAC. Mature one, launch one. ”

Zeng Qinghong also said that the purpose of market-oriented capital operation and employee shareholding plans for more projects within the GAC Group is to make the GAC Group more flexible in mechanism, more market-oriented, more capital to enter through market-oriented operation, and more talent to attract talents.

At the same time, GAC Group also focuses on the field of travel through the capital operation platform and equity investment and financing platform , GAC Capital, focusing on the "new four modernizations" of automobiles, focusing on new energy, automatic driving, intelligent networking and other fields.

According to reports, GAC Capital currently holds more than 24 funds, more than 43 investment projects, and the investment amount in the field of automotive "new four modernizations" accounts for 80% of the total, of which the investment amount in the field of chips and intelligent networks and new energy batteries accounts for about 50% each. In the field of new energy, since 2019, GAC Capital has gradually penetrated key links such as super fast charging technology, energy storage materials, battery manufacturing, fuel cell R&D and manufacturing by investing in Kaijin New Energy, Zhuhai Guanyu, Qingtao Development, AVIC Lithium Battery, Juwan Technology Research and Technology, and Jie Hydrogen Technology.

In addition, GAC Group is also constantly expanding its "circle of friends" in the field of science and technology.

It is understood that GAC Group has reached strategic cooperation agreements with Huawei, Tencent, Pearl River Investment Management and other enterprises to jointly build a cross-border integrated intelligent networked vehicle ecosystem and accelerate the research and development and application of intelligent networked vehicles. At present, the results of strategic cooperation have been gradually implemented. Including: Tencent's ecological vehicle networking products (such as Penguin FM, QQ Music, Tencent Voice, Tencent Maps, etc.), have been equipped with applications in the second generation of Trumpchi GS4, GAC Trumpchi M6, etc., as well as GAC Aian's AION S, AION LX and other models. The second-generation Trumpchi GS4 is the world's first mass-produced model equipped with in-vehicle WeChat.

As the first large-scale state-controlled automobile group listed on the A+H shares in China, GAC motor has a long way to go and has gained a lot. In the future, what kind of achievements GAC Group can achieve, we will continue to pay attention to.