In 2022, RoboSense had 953 customers, including Geely, GAC Aion, Great Wall Motor, Xpeng, Lotus and Lucid.

(Image credit: RoboSense)

RoboSense Technology has filed for a Hong Kong IPO and is expected to become the second Chinese LiDAR maker to go public after Hesai Group.

RoboSense's prospectus was made public on the HKEX website today, with JPMorgan and China Renaissances as co-sponsors.

The number of shares RoboSense plans to issue or the amount of capital it plans to raise has not been announced, but the prospectus provides details about its business.

RoboSense was founded in 2014 and its RS-LiDAR-M1 was the world's first mass-produced solid-state LiDAR, with mass production and delivery beginning in June 2021.

In 2022, RS-LiDAR-M1P, an upgraded version of RS-LiDAR-M1, achieves mass production.

Sales of RS-LiDAR-M1 and RS-LiDAR-M1P were 36,600 units and 4,300 units respectively in 2022.

RoboSense demonstrated the new product RS-LiDAR-E1 at its Tech Day event on November 7, 2022, and will begin mass production in the second half of 2023.

As of March 31, RoboSense has received expected orders for 52 models of LiDAR from 21 car companies and Tier 1 suppliers, of which 9 models have already started production, according to its prospectus.

In 2022, RoboSense had 953 customers, including primarily Geely, GAC Aion, Great Wall Motor, Xpeng, Lotus, and Lucid.

Since inception, RoboSense has delivered more than 100,000 LiDARs cumulatively as of the end of the first quarter.

RoboSense's revenues for 2020 to 2022 were RMB171 million ($23.5 million), RMB331 million, and RMB530 million, respectively.

Like many other tech startups, RoboSense is still in the red.

From 2020 to 2022, RoboSense recorded net losses of RMB 220 million, RMB 1.65 billion, and RMB 2.09 billion, respectively.

Its adjusted net losses for these three years were RMB 59.9 million, RMB 108 million, and RMB 563 million, respectively. These adjustments include the exclusion of share-based compensation, changes in the value of financial instruments issued to investors, and listing expenses.

RoboSense entered into a supply partnership with BYD at the end of 2021 and announced on February 6 this year a supply partnership agreement with Toyota to supply LiDARs for a number of the latter's models.

RoboSense is set to become the second Chinese LiDAR maker to go public, after its local counterpart Hesai was listed in the US on February 10.

Hesai, also founded in Shanghai in late 2014, initially focused on developing high-performance laser sensors and has been exploring driverless LiDAR products since 2016.

($1 = RMB 7.2689)

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