The “pig” on the tuyere?
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “Feng travel” (ID: fengchuxing2021), Author: Small co.
From traditional fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles to smart cars, from the human-led “manual” driving mode to the “automatic” mode where the car drives itself, there is a huge gap between this span. Through the efforts of car companies and technology companies, cars have gradually become smarter and smarter. Although autonomous driving technology has not yet matured, the driving model of today’s cars has also undergone tremendous changes from more than a decade ago.
Is Xiao Ma Zhixing the “pig” on the outlet?
According to statistics, autonomous driving began to sprout in 2013, and after two years of accumulation, it entered the first outbreak period in 2016, and continued its strong “gold-absorbing” momentum for two years. In the field of autonomous driving, there have been more than 70 investments and financings in the past two years, with a total amount of 81.1 billion yuan. In 2021, in just the first two months, there have been 24 investment and financing related to autonomous driving technology, and the total amount of investment and financing disclosed was as high as 17.64 billion yuan.
Seeing such a huge amount of data, Xiao Lei has forgotten how to use mental arithmetic, and can only use mobile phones to calculate, and finally calculated that the total amount of “absorbed money” for autonomous driving in the past decade has exceeded 200 billion. According to this trend, Xiao Lei believes that after this year, the total “suction” of autonomous driving may exceed 300 billion yuan.
In this context, many companies have emerged in the field of autonomous driving. Among them, there are also many outstanding autonomous driving companies in China, such as Baidu, Chinese Express, Yicheng, and Xiaoma Zhixing. Today Xiao Lei is going to talk to everyone about Xiao Ma Zhixing.
Xiao Ma Zhixing was established at the end of 2016, and its R&D centers are located in Silicon Valley, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai. Because it has been tested on public roads in urban areas for a long time, it has accumulated a large number of complex and extreme scene data, and based on these data to achieve safe and reliable automatic driving.Driving technology.
Relying on its experience and strength in the field of autonomous driving, Xiaoma Zhixing has obtained autonomous driving test, operation qualifications and licenses in many places in China and the United States; and relying on breakthroughs in the field of artificial intelligence technology, it has already competed with Toyota, Hyundai, FAW, Guangzhou Automobile and other automakers have established cooperative relations.
Of course, if you want to mix in the field of autonomous driving, you can’t develop without a certain amount of funds. You should know that autonomous driving is a very “cash-burning” technical activity, otherwise it would not invest as much as 200 billion in financing and it would not make the autonomous driving technology really land. Like many autonomous driving companies, Xiaoma Zhixing also relies on continuous financing to have funds for R&D technology and operating companies.
On February 8 this year, Xiaoma Zhixing obtained a US$100 million C+ round of financing from Brunei’s sovereign wealth fund, Brunei Investment Bureau and CPE, and its C financing with a total amount of US$367 million was officially completed. After completing this round of financing, Xiaoma Zhixing also has enough funds to accelerate the implementation of autonomous driving technology.
Don’t think that Xiaoma Zhixing is a new autonomous driving company, but its strength is not weak, and it is very popular with capital investors in the field of autonomous driving. Since its establishment, Xiaoma Zhixing has completed 7 rounds of financing in this short four years, with a total financing amount of more than 1.1 billion US dollars. Especially since 2020, Xiaoma Zhixing has obviously accelerated the pace of financing. During this period, it has received a total of 3 financings with an amount of more than 900 million US dollars.
It can be seen that this year may be a year for autonomous driving to reach its peak again, and autonomous driving companies will obtain more capital from capital investors for research and development of technology. Against this background, Xiao Lei feels that Xiao Ma Zhixing will get more financing opportunities this year. Of course, the premise is that it accelerates research and development of technology and presents to the outside world technologies that are different from other competitors, so that it has the ability to obtain more opportunities.
How far is Pony Zhixing from the unicorn?
As the saying goes, “people are afraid of being famous and pigs are afraid of being strong.” After Xiaoma Zhixing completed US$367 million in Series C financing, there were rumors in the industry that the company offered US$10 billion to potential investors for another round of financing. If it can complete the financing, it will become the first autonomous driving unicorn in China.
However, Xiao Lei felt that this rumor was very moist. Judging from the current state of Pony Zhixing, whether it is the value he created in the field of autonomous driving or its current business capabilities, there is still a long way to go compared with the three super unicorns of Waymo, Cruise and Aurora in the field of autonomous driving. , To become a self-driving unicorn, Xiaoma Zhixing still has a long way to go.
In terms of technology, Xiaoma Zhixing has been focusing on the research of L4/L5 autonomous driving. In order to make this technology practical, it adopts a full-stack solution, that is, a combination of software solutions and hardware solutions for autonomous driving. And it also cooperates with companies such as Toyota and Bosch to jointly develop technologies for autonomous driving.
At present, Xiaoma Zhixing has launched a large-scale autonomous driving fleet in five Chinese and American cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Fremont, and Irvine, and has launched it in cities where it has established autonomous driving R&D and operation centers. Improved autonomous driving travel and distribution services.
It is worth mentioning that when the epidemic broke out last year, Xiao Ma Zhixing also entered the field of freight, providing self-driving delivery services for residents of Irvine, the United States. Based on its experience in the field of freight, the brand announced the brand name of the truck business on March 31. Its name is Pony Tron (English name is Pony Tron), which means Pony Tron. Formally formed a two-wheel drive business layout of “autonomous driving passenger car (Robotaxi) + autonomous driving commercial vehicle”.
From this point of view, Pony Smart’s business in the field of autonomous driving is not limited to passenger cars, but also in the field of trucks. As for the implementation of L4/L5 autonomous driving technology, this is still a bit difficult, after all, there is no one in this field. Autonomous driving companies have implemented this technology, and Xiaoma Zhixing is still a “newborn” in this field. It needs continuous training and precipitation to slowly achieve its goals.
Summary
Judging from the market this year, many investors have increased their bargaining chips for autonomous driving companies. Xiaoma Zhixing also has certain strength in China. It only needs to show investors and reveal its autonomous driving blueprint. Maybe this year it will become the first self-driving unicorn in China.