As venture capital funding slows in China, EV is one of the few sectors that still continues to excite investors. Case in point, Zeekr, the luxury electric vehicle brand of Geely, China’s largest private automaker, announced Monday that an investor has pledged his $750 million in a Series A funding round. . His post-money valuation jumped to $13 billion.
The news comes just two months after Zeekr announced that it had secretly filed for an initial public offering in the United States. TechCrunch reached out to Zeekr about the IPO status.
Investors who have agreed to back Zeekr in its Series A include Mobileye founder and CEO Amnon Shashua, Chinese battery giant and Tesla supplier Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL), and China’s state-owned Yuexiu Industrial Fund. , Tongshang Fund, Xin’ and other leading companies. Intelligent Manufacturing Fund, another Chinese state-owned investment vehicle.
Proceeds from the procurement support Zeekr’s technology research and global expansion. In fact, the company is actively expanding its international footprint. In January, my colleague Kirsten wrote about 3,000 job openings in more than 30 cities around the world, including R&D centers in Ningbo and Shanghai, China, and Gothenburg, Sweden. The young automaker also opened offices in Silicon Valley.
Founded in March 2021, Zeekr opened its first external funding round in August of that year. $500 million in total investment from a list of strategic investors, including Intel Capital, Intel’s corporate VC arm, CATL, Chinese user-generated video site Bilibili, Chinese private equity fund Cathay Fortune Group, founder Yu Yong’s holding company is the majority shareholder. Investor in CATL and investor in Ant Group, the renowned Chinese private his equity firm Boyu Capital.
