NIO Capital’s US dollar fund closes first fundraising of over $200 million

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- NIO Capital, an investment firm founded by leading Chinese EV maker NIO, announced on December 30 its US dollar fund (Eve ONE L.P.) has completed the first fundraising with over $200 million collected from a number of world's leading investors.

The investors are from a variety of blue-chip investment firms and industrial funds, including sovereign wealth funds, overseas pension funds, foreign insurance companies, fund of funds (FoF), multinational corporations and family foundations, said NIO Capital. The money raised has been used to invest in several leading startups focusing on automobile, energy and logistics.

（Photo source: NIO Capital)

NIO Capital said it has injected capital into quite a few autonomous driving startups, mobility service providers and energy solution developers, and most of them have yielded substantial technology fruits. For instance, Pony.ai has launched trial operation of robo-taxi service, and completed roughly 1-million-km autonomous driving tests; Momenta possesses the automotive-grade “Mpilot” autonomous driving solution available for mass production; Dida Chuxing is the world's first mobility service platform that achieves sustained scale profitability; Inception is the first one in China that is permitted to test autonomous driving trucks on trunk highways.

(Photo source: NIO)

The sponsor NIO shrugged off a string of woes in 2019 by launching its third production model, the EC6, and the all-new ES8 SUV with a longer range at its third NIO Day. The startup was once mired in predicament caused by car firing incidents, abortion of governmental investment and sales plunge. However, the delivery rebound for recent months somewhat lifted the industry's confidence in NIO future.

By December 28, 2019, NIO has owned 66 stores nationwide, including 22 NIO Houses and 44 NIO Spaces. The sales network covering 49 cities across the country is one of weapons spreading NIO's brand influence and consolidating consumers' loyalty.

“After five years of rapid growth, NIO has become more mature in corporate operations, product quality, sales performance, and user experience. We are very confident about the upcoming 2020.” said William Li, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO.