Black Sesame is the second Specialist Technology Company to be listed under the new Chapter 18C Rules of the Main Board Listing Rules of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, following XtalPi listed in June.
Special technology, mainly for the new generation of information technology, advanced hardware and software, advanced materials, new energy and energy conservation and environmental protection, new food and agricultural technology these five types of industries set up, in the reduction of profit requirements at the same time for business records, expected market value, income, research and development, third-party investment these aspects of some special requirements.
Eligible companies can go public even if they are not profitable, similar to the previous 18A biotech company listing.
1. Prospectus information
Second, the company profile
Founded in 2016, Black Sesame Intelligence, as a provider of automotive-grade computing SoCs and SoC-based intelligent vehicle solutions, has designed two series of automotive-grade SoCs, Huashan series of high-computing SoCs and Wudang series of cross-domain SoCs.
An SoC is an integrated circuit design that integrates all the necessary components and subsystems required for a specific application or function, including the CPU, GPU (graphics processing unit), ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit), and other components, into a single chip, rather than mounting individual components on a single motherboard as in traditional electronic designs.
Black Sesame has received 23 models of interest from 16 OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, and has cooperated with more than 49 OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, including FAW Group, Dongfeng Group, Jiangqi Group, Hechuang, ECARX, Baidu, Bosch, ZF and Marellali.
In 2023, in China's high-computing intelligent driving SoC shipments (calculated by pieces), Black Sesame Intelligence's market share is 7.2%, ranking third, and the top two are Nvidia and Horizon. According to the company's disclosure data, the total shipment of its main product Huashan A1000 series exceeded 152,000 pieces last year.
Financial data show that from 2021 to 2023 and in the first three months of 24, Black Sesame Smart's revenue will be 61 million yuan, 165 million yuan, 312 million yuan and 29 million yuan respectively, and the net loss will reach 2.357 billion yuan, 2.754 billion yuan, 4.855 billion yuan and 1.107 billion yuan, and the loss will be 11 billion yuan in the past three years. This is due to the fact that the development of intelligent driving SoCs requires a large amount of capital investment - R&D expenditure accounted for 78.7%, 69.4% and 74.0% of operating expenses during the period.
Black Sesame Intelligence's revenue mainly comes from providing autonomous driving products and solutions, accounting for 85.8% of its revenue in the first three months of this year; In addition, the company provides intelligent imaging solutions that enable various devices to facilitate intelligent perception and content enhancement through algorithms, mainly by licensing the company's own IP algorithms to enterprise customers for a fee.
Before this IPO, Black Sesame Intelligence has completed 10 rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing amount of about 700 million US dollars, and a luxurious lineup of investors, including star companies such as Xiaomi, Geely, SAIC, Tencent and NIO. In December 2021, the last round of financing was valued at US$2.23 billion (about HK$17.4 billion), which is basically unchanged compared with the market value of this round of issuance.
3. Comprehensive reviews
Recently, the concept of intelligent driving has continued to become popular, and the related industry chain has benefited from it. Among them, chips, as core components, have always received great attention, especially autonomous driving chips, which have been firmly controlled by overseas manufacturers such as Nvidia and Mobileye (Intel subsidiary). However, under the tide of domestic substitution, Black Sesame Intelligence has been recognized by many OEMs with higher cost performance.
At present, although the growth of the vehicle market is limited, the trend of intelligent and electrified vehicles is clear, which has become an important driving force for the future semiconductor market.
In the intelligent driving industry, Zhixing Automotive Technology, which landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at the end of last year, has a current market value of HK $6.13 billion and a price-to-sales ratio of about 5 times, while Black Sesame Smart has a price-to-sales ratio of 53 times, and the valuation is boundless.
It should be noted that companies listed on 18C will have an initial public offering of 5% of their shares; Overpurchased 10 times ~ 49 times will be called back to 10%, and overpurchased more than 50 times will be called back to 20%.
The shares issued by Black Sesame Intelligence in this IPO accounted for 6.5% of all shares, according to the median IPO price of 29.15 Hong Kong dollars, raising about 1.079 billion yuan, 2 cornerstones locked in 9.9 million US dollars (77.3 million Hong Kong dollars), and the circulation plate was 1 billion Hong Kong dollars.
Black Sesame Intelligence is currently trading 1 times, and there is a high probability that it will not overbuy 10 times to start the callback, 9250 hands in Group A and B, according to 5000 people subscribe, it is estimated that the winning rate in one hand is 100%, and it is not involved.