Lei Jianping February 9
Hesai Technology (stock code: "HSAI") listed today on the NASDAQ with an offering price of $19, at the highest end of the offering range of $17 to $19.
The issuance scale of Hesai Technology increased from 9 million ADSs to 10 million ADSs, raising 190 million US dollars. Based on the offering price, Hesai Technology has a market capitalization of approximately US$2.4 billion.
Hesai Technology is the largest IPO of a Chinese company to go public in the United States in the past 18 months.
Hesai is another Chinese concept stock listed in the United States after Quantum Song, and it is also the first large-scale Chinese concept stock company to initiate a listing in the US capital market after the review of the Chinese concept stock draft officially landed.
With this listing, Hesai Technology became the first LiDAR stock in China to be listed in the United States.
Li Yifan, CEO of Hesai Technology, told Leidi.com, "We have made a lot of preliminary preparations, including actively communicating with relevant institutions, advancing the work according to the requirements and nodes of relevant regulatory authorities for US stock listing, and submitting relevant materials in a timely manner. The most important thing is the steady development of the company's own business over the years, which has laid the foundation for the listing. ”
Revenue of 790 million yuan in 9 months exceeded the whole year of the previous year
Founded in Shanghai in 2014, Hesai Technology is a global leader in autonomous driving and advanced driver assistance (ADAS) lidar.
Lidar is widely used in the field of driverless cars and robots, and is known as the "eye" of generalized robots, and is an active measuring device that measures the precise distance between an object and a sensor by emitting a laser.
Hesai Technology's revenue has grown rapidly, and its revenue in the first 9 months of 2022 has exceeded that of the whole year of 2021, and during the same period, Hesai Technology's net loss ratio has been significantly reduced.
In 2019, 2020 and 2021, the revenue of Hesai Technology was 348 million yuan, 416 million yuan and 720 million yuan (about 101 million US dollars), and the net loss was 120 million yuan, 107 million yuan and 245 million yuan, respectively.
Hesai Technology's revenue in the first nine months of 2022 was 793 million yuan (about 112 million US dollars), an increase of 72.77% from 459 million yuan in the same period of the previous year; Net loss was $165 million, down from $175 million in the same period last year.
Hesai's revenue has exceeded the sum of the revenue of several major global lidar companies such as Velodyne, Ouster, Luminar, Innoviz, etc., and it seems that among all the world's lidar companies, Hesai Technology is the most promising and profitable manufacturer.
The continued high growth of Hesai's revenue is supported by a large number of orders. According to Hesai's previous announcement, the company has obtained more than millions of lidar front-loading mass production points from more than 10 mainstream automotive OEMs, including leading manufacturers such as Changan, SAIC and Geely, as well as new force leaders such as Lili. At present, Hesai has delivered more than 100,000 lidars, and is expected to deliver more than 1 million units in 2025.
For the nine months ended September 30, 2021 and the nine months ended September 30, 2022, the gross profit margin of Hesai Technology was 53.3% and 44%, respectively.
Hesai has invested heavily in the research and development of lidar technology. In 2019, 2020 and 2021, Hesai's R&D expenses were RMB149.8 million, RMB229.7 million and RMB368.4 million (US$51.8 million), accounting for 43.0%, 55.3% and 51.1% of net revenue for the same period, respectively.
For the nine months ended September 30, 2021 to September 30, 2022, Hesai's R&D expenses were $210 million and $376.4 million (US$52.9 million), accounting for 45.8% and 47.4% of net revenue for the same period, respectively.
Hesai Technology's revenue in the third quarter of 2022 was 334 million yuan, an increase of 49% from 224 million yuan in the same period of the previous year and a 49% increase from 211 million yuan in the previous quarter.
Starting from 2023, lidar has entered the era of delivery in the true sense from the PPT era, and any manufacturer that cannot be delivered will eventually be eliminated by the market.
Former NIO CFO in charge of Hesai IPO
The three co-founders of Hesai Technology are Li Yifan, Sun Kai and Xiang Shaoqing, and have served as directors and senior management of the company since its establishment.
Among them, Li Yifan, born in March 1986, graduated from the Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanics of Tsinghua University with a bachelor's degree in 2009, graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009 with a master's degree, and graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013 with a doctorate. He served as Principal Engineer at Western Digital Corporation (USA) from August 2013 to September 2014 and as a director, CEO and CEO since October 2014.
Sun Kai, born in June 1985, graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with a bachelor's degree in thermal energy and power engineering in 2007, graduated from Stanford University in 2009 with a master's degree in mechanical engineering, and graduated from Stanford University in 2013 with a doctorate degree in mechanical engineering (and also received a doctoral minor degree in electronics). Sun Kai conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University in the first half of 2014, and has served as the director and chief scientist of the company (including the predecessor Shanghai Hesai Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.) since October 2014; From December 2015 to February 2018, he was appointed as a professor at the School of Automotive Engineering, Tongji University; He is currently the Chief Scientist.
Xiang Shaoqing, born in March 1985, graduated from the Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanics of Tsinghua University with a bachelor's degree in 2007, graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Stanford University in 2009 with a master's degree, and graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering of Stanford University in 2011 with a master's degree. He served as the iPhone Hardware Systems Integration Engineer of Apple (USA) from June 2011 to November 2014, and served as a director and chief technology officer of the company since December 2014.
Former NIO CFO Xie Dongying has also joined Hesai Technology as CFO to handle the IPO of Hesai Technology.
Xie Dongying is very senior in the CFO circle, and served as CFO and president of New Oriental Education Technology, promoting New Oriental's listing on the US stock market. New Oriental's listing in the United States was not only due to the domestic policy reasons for private education at that time, but also the development of red-chip structure, and Xie Dongying became famous in the war.
Xie Dongying also served as the CFO of NIO, promoting NIO's listing on the US stock market, becoming the first new automaker to go public in the United States.
Cumulative fundraising of more than $500 million Xiaomi Baidu is a shareholder
Hesai Technology has obtained more than 500 million US dollars in financing from Xiaomi, Meituan, Bosch, Baidu, Lightspeed, Hillhouse, CPE, Qiming and other institutions.
Among them, in June 2021, Hesai Technology completed a series D financing of more than US$300 million, led by Hillhouse Venture Capital, Xiaomi Group, Meituan and CPE. Also participating in this round of financing are Huatai US Dollar Fund, as well as old shareholders Lightspeed China, Lightspeed Global, Qiming Venture Capital, etc.
Before the IPO, Li Yifan and Xiang Shaoqing each held 8.6% of the shares and had 25.7% of the voting rights; Sun Kai holds 8.9% of the shares and has 26.5% of the voting rights; Xie Dongxing holds 1.2% of the shares and has 0.4% of the voting rights. The management of Hesai Technology holds a total of 27.1% of the shares and has 77.9% of the voting rights.
Lightspeed Opportunity holds 9.3% of the shares and has 2.8% of the voting rights; Lightspeed China Partners holds 8.2% of the shares and has 2.5% of the voting rights; In other words, Lightspeed China holds a total of 17.5% of the shares, and is the largest institutional shareholder of Hesai Technology.
Baidu holds 6.8% of the shares and has 2% voting rights; Bosch holds 6.6% of the shares and has 2% voting rights; Xiaomi holds 6.3% of the shares and has 1.9% voting rights; Yuanzhan holds 5.9% of the shares and has 1.8% of the voting rights.
After the IPO, Li Yifan and Xiang Shaoqing each held 7.9% of the shares and had 25.1% voting rights; Sun Kai holds 8.2% of the shares and has 25.9% of the voting rights; Xie Dongying holds 1.1% of the shares and has 0.3% voting rights. The management of Hesai Technology holds a total of 25.1% of the shares and has 76.2% of the voting rights.
Lightspeed Opportunity holds 7.9% of the shares and has 2.6% voting rights; Lightspeed China Partners holds 7.1% of the shares and has 2.4% voting rights; That is, Lightspeed China holds a total of 15% of the equity.
Baidu holds 6% of the shares and has 2% voting rights; Bosch holds 5.8% of the shares and has 1.9% of the voting rights; Xiaomi holds 5.5% of the shares and has 1.8% of the voting rights; Yuanzhan holds 5.2% of the shares and has 1.7% of the voting rights.
Mi Qun, founding partner of Lightspeed China, told Leidai that the focus on the lidar track stemmed from its first experience of autonomous driving developed in-house at Google's headquarters 10 years ago. Although it was still very early in the development stage, the test drive felt quite good, but there were also many problems.
"I judge that with the iterative development of software, autonomous driving will be realized sooner or later, which will bring huge changes to the entire automotive industry, energy, insurance, and travel methods. At that time, I learned that the lidar on the roof of the Google car that I test-drove cost $100,000. LiDAR is the core hardware in the field of autonomous driving, I think it is very necessary to break through, the barriers are also very high, from the perspective of investment, this is a very good track. ”
Since then, Lightspeed China has been looking for good startups in the lidar track in China, the United States, Israel and other parts of the world, and has scanned almost all the companies on this track.
In fact, in 2014, Mi Qun communicated with Li Yifan, when Hesai was doing laser gas detection, Mi Qun judged that the market was not large enough and did not invest. In 2017, Hesai transformed into lidar, and there were mechanical radar sample customers testing, and Mi Qun took the initiative to contact Li Yifan.
"I have had many conversations with the Hesai team, and they are only starting to do research in the laboratory on solid-state radar, and they have an immature prototype. I asked if I could test the prototype, and I ended up testing it 200 to 300 meters in the underground garage of the Hesai office, which was not perfect, but we judged that it was still very promising in terms of design and architecture. ”
Mi Qun said that although the Hesai team is very young, it has a growth mindset, strong execution, and an all-in mentality, and finally Lightspeed China invested in Hesai in early 2018. Since 2018, Lightspeed has led 5 consecutive rounds of financing in Hesai, with a cumulative investment amount of more than US$100 million.
"The round of financing after our investment was critical, and the company needed more capital to complete the research and development of solid-state radar, and many investors at that time were hesitant to lead the investment. We got to know the company better, led the next round, and brought in other followers. ”
Hillhouse Venture Capital participated in the Series D financing of Hesai Technology in 2021. In the view of Hillhouse Venture Capital, based on profound technical accumulation and practical experience, the Hesai team provides the industry with innovative sensor solutions with higher performance, strong and stable. Further, Hillhouse Ventures' investment in Hesai is not only out of the need to lay out autonomous driving and even the automotive industry chain.
Hillhouse Venture Capital said that through strong engineering capabilities, Hesai Technology has completed the production of higher quality, low-cost and mass-producible products, which is a typical template for manufacturing industry chain innovation; Hillhouse's large, systematic investment in manufacturing upgrading in recent years is also based on this underlying logic.
Kwong Ziping, an investor in Hesai Technology and founding managing partner of Qiming Venture Capital, said that Qiming Venture Capital has always been very concerned about the field of intelligent driving and autonomous driving. After investing in the autonomous driving technology company WeRide Zhixing, he deeply understood the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and then "scanned" in the lidar industry, and finally selected Hesai Technology, which has come all the way to today.
Kwong Ziping believes that the Hesai Technology team has three advantages: 1. The team is very professional, has a deep understanding of the industry, and has not made mistakes in the product direction; 2. Strong technical ability, good product performance and solid quality; 3. The team's commercialization ability is strong, and it is strong international commercialization ability.
"This industry is updating quickly, the market is growing rapidly, but today's scale is not large, the US market alone or the Chinese market has limitations, Hesai Technology can make efforts in the global market."
The recovery of the listing of Chinese concept stocks has the role of a weather vane
Since the second half of 2022, the road to listing of Chinese concept stocks in the United States has ended a one-and-a-half-year stagnation, and the listing of Atour is ice-breaking for Chinese concept stocks to list in the United States, while the listing of Hesai means that Chinese concept stocks are listed in the United States to pick up, which will have a strong demonstration effect.
Recently, the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) also released a report, saying that for the first time in history, it completed the review of the draft of Chinese concept stocks.
From September 2022 to November 2022, more than 30 PCAOB staff conducted a nine-week on-site inspection and investigation in Hong Kong, China, and the PCAOB board voted to rescind a previous 2021 decision, the report said. This means that the Chinese concept stocks that were previously included in the delisting list will eliminate the risk of delisting in the future.
On the same day, the PCAOB review of Chinese concept stocks was officially implemented, which means that the Foreign Companies Accountability Act that "if a foreign issuer fails to meet the PCAOB's inspection requirements for accounting firms for three consecutive years, its securities are prohibited from trading in the United States" is no longer established on Chinese concept stocks, and the risk of delisting of Chinese concept stocks has basically been lifted.
With the implementation of PCAOB review and supervision in 2022, coupled with China's liberalization of the epidemic, economic development began to improve again in 2023, and Didi resumed listing, all of which effectively boosted foreign investors' confidence in Chinese assets.
As a hard technology company in the autonomous driving industry chain, the successful issuance of Hesai also means that the confidence of foreign capital in Chinese enterprises has been further enhanced, and it is expected that more companies will go public in the United States in 2023.
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Lei Dian was founded by media person Lei Jianping, if reprinted, please indicate the source.