Consciousness over global warming is growing strong. Products using a more sustainable energy source is attracting more and more investor. One of the actors of it is NIO, an electric vehicle maker. The Shanghai-based company recently announced a $1.5 billion boost from E-Town Capital for NIO China.
Backed by Yizhuang district government, the investment is under one agreement. NIO, together with E-Town Capital is to set a new entity called Nio China. The $1.5 billion would be in the form of a minority stake at Nio China.If the transaction and the proceedings goes as it planned, NIO might be opening a new factory in Beijing.
A bold move despite the company’s disappointing performance in 2019
This is a bold move from E-Town, in contrast to NIO’s financial report at the first quarter of 2019. Previously, the company reported a 54.6% dip in its sales from the quarter before. Meanwhile it’s net loss is increasing as high as 71.4% to $390.0 year on year.
Even Louis Hsieh, NIO’s CEO, admitted that it is expecting more loss at the second quarter of 2019. This is due the more challenging sales environment as well as China’s general automobile market that remains muted.
How NIO started
William Li, Chairman of Bitauto and NextEV founded NIO in 2014. But instead of doing the official launch before going deeper on the research and development, it already did it before the company’s launch. As the company’s launch is in the same day of the launch of its first car, NIO EP9.
NIO received it’s Autonomous Vehicle Testing Permit from California DMV. It is part of the company’s autonomous vehicle program. The company set the program to launch the autonomous vehicle soon.
The company’s virtue attracted many investor. It’s biggest investors are Tencent, Temasek, Baidu, Sequoia, Lenovo and TPG. In September 2018, NIO went public after filing for a $1.8 billion IPO on the New York Stock Exchange.
