Youxia Motors announces RMB 5 billion B-round funding
Shanghai (ZXZC)- Youxia Motors, one of China's EV startup, announced the completion of RMB 5 billion B-round funding on Mar. 31, which was jointly invested by 12 venture capital institutions, including Qianhai Mergers and Acquisition Funds, SINOEP and China Fortune Ocean.
This is the first time for Youxia to release its whole financing information to the public. In October, 2017, it closed RMB 1.22 billion A-round funding, led by a variety of venture capital institutions, such as Xinhua Silk Road Fund. With the two-round funding, Youxia now has received a total investment of RMB 6.22 billion and its entire valuation totaled RMB 12.2 billion.
After the B-round funding, Youxia Motors will focus on financing, team building, R&D, manufacturing and brand marketing, providing solid manufacturing system for the mass production of the Youxia X.
As to product manufacturing and marketing, Youxia Motors will build its own manufacturing plant and production line to focus on the operation of the independent brand. The first manufacturing base was located in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province in April, 2017. The plant features a 1+5+1 layout, namely one vehicle manufacturing plant with complete four manufacturing techniques, five core supporting companies and one R&D trial production and testing center. The program will cover an area of 1,733,333 square meters with a planned annual production capacity of 200,000 units. It is expected that the plant will complete construction within this year. After the completion of construction, Youxia will start mass production and deliver its models to customers.
Till now, Youxia has a staff of 500 employees, who once served at famous automakers and internet companies, such as BMW, GM, Huawei, Volvo, SAIC, Baidu and Tencent. What's more, the EV maker also established R&D centers in Shanghai, Suzhou and Turin in Italy. According to Wei Jun, CEO of Youxia Motors, the company will expand its staff to 600 employees, and Youxia will adopt a personnel management which is similar to high-tech companies.
In terms of building the supply system, parts suppliers who partnered with Youxia Motors reached a total of around 500. Among them, the world-leading suppliers took up 70% of the total suppliers.
When it comes to the to-be-mass-produced all-new Youxia X, Wei Jun exposed that the Youxia X has finished four-round trial production and completed 90% testing items with three-year R&D and trial production. The most striking features of the Youxia X are its stylish appearance, robust power performance and highly intelligent performance. It adopts premium imported battery cells, self-developed high-performance battery pack and 350kW high-power electric motor. Besides, the specific intelligent interactive system, KITT® OS is deployed in the model.
In addition, Youxia will carry out driving experiencing and presale through building up experiencing center and operation network in first- and second-tier cities. It targets to sell 30,000 units in 2019, and aims to double the sales in 2020 and triple the sales in 2021.