Another autonomous driving company is planning to go public.
According to the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission on June 17th, the autonomous driving startup Momenta Global Limited (hereinafter referred to as "Momenta") has passed the overseas listing filing process and has decided to list on the Nasdaq or New York Stock Exchange, issuing no more than 63.3529 million ordinary shares.
According to the "Trial Measures for the Administration of Overseas Issuance and Listing of Securities by Domestic Enterprises" released on the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, for initial public offering or listing, the applicant shall file with the China Securities Regulatory Commission within 3 working days after submitting the application documents for overseas issuance and listing. This indicates that Momenta has submitted its listing application documents to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Prior to this, companies related to autonomous driving, including Zongmu Technology, Horizon, and Black Sesame Intelligence, have all launched IPOs, ushering in another wave of listings in the autonomous driving industry.
Momenta has disclosed 6 rounds of financing and received investments from General Motors, SAIC, Mercedes Benz, and others
As early as 2020, foreign media reported that Momenta planned to go to the United States or Hong Kong for an IPO. In May of this year, according to foreign media reports, Momenta secretly launched an IPO in the United States, raising $200 million to $300 million through the IPO. The company is collaborating with CICC, Goldman Sachs, and UBS Group, and is expected to complete its IPO as early as this year.
According to public information, Momenta was founded in 2016 as an autonomous driving solution provider. The company combines the "dual track" product strategy of L2 level mass-produced autonomous driving Mmilot and L4 level and above fully autonomous driving MSD, aiming to provide multi-level autonomous driving solutions and promote the large-scale application of autonomous driving technology.
According to the official website, Cao Xudong, the CEO of the company, graduated from Tsinghua University and worked in Microsoft Research Asia and Shangtang Technology successively. He has nearly 100 research and development team management experience, product landing experience, and long-term research on perception of unmanned driving environment, high-precision maps, and driving decisions.
Since its establishment, Momenta has received at least 6 rounds of financing, including investors from globally renowned car companies such as NIO Capital, Daimler, Bosch Venture Capital, SAIC Group, Mercedes Benz China, General Motors, Toyota, and others.
According to the company's official website, in November 2016, Momenta received a Series A financing of $5 million led by Blue Lake Capital, Innovation Works, and Zhenhe Fund; In early 2017, Momenta obtained Series A1 financing led by Shunwei Capital.
In the second year of its establishment, well-known car companies began to frequently appear among Momenta's investors.
On July 25, 2017, Momenta announced that it had received a Series B investment of $46 million, led by NIO Capital and Daimler Group, and co invested by Shunwei Capital, Innovation Works, and Jiuhe Venture Capital.
On October 17, 2018, Momenta announced the completion of a new round of financing and announced that the company's valuation had exceeded $1 billion. This round of strategic investors includes Tencent, China Merchants Group Venture Capital, and others.
On March 19, 2021, Momenta announced the completion of Series C financing totaling $500 million. This round of financing is led by SAIC Group, Toyota, Bosch, Temasek, and Yunfeng Fund, with joint investments from Mercedes Benz, Shunwei Capital, Tencent, and others. A few months later, Momenta immediately announced the completion of the C+round financing exceeding $500 million. At this point, the cumulative financing amount of Momenta C round has exceeded 1 billion US dollars.
Momenta has also reached strategic cooperation with a group of investors, and SAIC's high-end intelligent pure electric brand, Zhiji Automobile, is equipped with Momenta's technical solutions. In addition, BYD has also established a joint venture with Momenta, Shenzhen Dipai Zhixing Technology Co., Ltd., to provide BYD with intelligent driving solutions.
Intensive IPO of autonomous driving enterprises
Since the beginning of this year, companies such as Zongmu Technology, Horizon, and Black Sesame Intelligence have submitted listing applications to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In addition, companies such as Xiaoma Zhixing and Wenyuan Zhixing have also passed the overseas listing filing process and plan to list on the Nasdaq or New York Stock Exchange. Domestic autonomous driving companies have ushered in a wave of listings.
The financial information disclosed by the companies to be listed reveals a major pain point in the industry - a lack of money.
In March of this year, Horizon submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The prospectus showed that Horizon's revenue in 2021, 2022, and 2023 were RMB 467 million, RMB 906 million, and RMB 1.552 billion, respectively. The net losses for the same period reached RMB 2.064 billion, RMB 8.72 billion, and RMB 6.739 billion, respectively.
Let's take a look at another smart driving supplier, Black Sesame Intelligence. According to the prospectus updated by Black Sesame Intelligence in March this year, the company's revenue from 2021 to 2023 was 60.5 million yuan, 165 million yuan, and 312 million yuan, respectively; The net losses reached 2.357 billion yuan, 2.754 billion yuan, and 4.855 billion yuan respectively.
Industry insiders believe that the rush of autonomous driving companies to the secondary market may be due to early investor monetization needs. Once these companies successfully complete their IPO, it will also bring new financing possibilities to the "burning" autonomous driving industry, accelerating the recovery of the industry's investment and financing situation.
In the past two years, due to the uncertainty of technological routes and other reasons, the autonomous driving industry has entered a "capital winter".
In terms of financing, according to Securities Daily, there were 144 investment and financing events in the domestic autonomous driving industry in 2021, with a financing scale of 93.2 billion yuan. In 2022, there were approximately 128 investment and financing events in the autonomous driving industry (excluding IPOs), with a financing scale of only 24 billion yuan, which is only a quarter of the total scale of 2021.
From Momenta's financing process, it can also be seen that after announcing the completion of the C+round of financing exceeding $500 million in November 2021, Momenta has not disclosed any financing information to the public.
With the boom of artificial intelligence this year and the gradual introduction of large models, coupled with the release of positive news such as Tesla's Robotaxi, the autonomous driving industry is beginning to recover.
The policy support for L3 and L4 level autonomous driving on the road is also being further improved. On June 4th, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and four other departments announced that China's first batch of consortia consisting of 9 automobile production enterprises and 9 user entities will launch pilot projects for the access and road use of intelligent connected vehicles in 7 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. This means that L3 and L4 levels of autonomous driving are getting closer to consumers.