Shanghai (ZXZC)- HOZON Auto, a Chinese EV startup operates a brand that is homonymous with the teen hero of Chinese mythology “Nezha”, has initiated its Series C funding round, and plans to go public on China's Nasdaq-style sci-tech innovation board (the STAR Market), according to a posting on its WeChat account.

As of April 2020, the startup has completed its angel, Series A and Series B financing rounds with over 7 billion yuan ($1,002,376,900) garnered in total. The amount of the money to be raised and the intended investors have still remained uncovered.

HOZON Auto has to-day put two mass-produced models—the Nezha N01 and the Nezha U, onto the market. The delivery of the latter just kicked off last month.

The company said it has so far delivered over 16,000 vehicles by the first half of 2020, and has owned more than 200 offline dealerships in over 180 cities.

(Nezha V)

Dubbed “Nezha V”, the third production model will hit the market in 2020's third quarter, said the company. Positioned as a small-sized all-electric SUV, the forthcoming new model will be powered by the batteries offered by CATL, which enables a NEDC-rated range of 401km.

The Zhejiang-based company is the third Chinese EV startup that announced its IPO planning, following NIO and Leading Ideal. The latter officially submitted a prospectus to the US Securities and Exchange Commission for listing on the Nasdaq on July 17. It plans to raise up to $100 million in its initial public offering with Snowball Securities as the IPO underwriter (photo source: Nezha's WeChat account) .