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Leidi.com Lei Jianping July 27

WeRide submitted its prospectus today, preparing to be listed on the Nasdaq in the United States with the stock code: "WRD".

At present, the domestic car-hailing service is very popular, and Tesla is planning its robot taxi business abroad. Alphabet has also stated that it will invest about US$5 billion in Waymo in the next few years. Waymo has also begun to launch commercial driverless services in many cities in the United States.

WeRide has been planning in this field for many years. Once successfully listed, WeRide will become the world's "first general-purpose autonomous driving stock".

Annual revenue 400 million

According to reports, WeRide was founded in 2017 and has carried out autonomous driving research and development, testing and operations in 30 cities in seven countries around the world, with more than 1,600 operating days. It is the only technology company that holds autonomous driving licenses in China, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.

WeRide has offices in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuxi, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, San Jose, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Stuttgart and other places.

WeRide has extensive practical experience at home and abroad in technology research and development, commercialization and corporate management, and has established strategic partnerships with many of the world's top OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, including the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, Yutong Group, GAC Group, Bosch, etc.

The prospectus shows that WeRide's revenue in 2021, 2022 and 2023 will be 138 million yuan, 528 million yuan and 400 million yuan (about 55.296 million US dollars), and the gross profit will be 51.66 million yuan, 233 million yuan and 183 million yuan respectively.

WeRide's revenue in the first half of 2024 was 150 million yuan (about 20.68 million US dollars), compared with 183 million yuan in the same period last year; gross profit was 54.79 million yuan, compared with 83.97 million yuan in the same period last year.

At present, WeRide has not yet achieved profitability. WeRide's adjusted net loss under Non-IFRS in 2024 is 316 million yuan.

Business covers multiple sectors

WeRide is committed to developing safe and reliable driverless technology, with application scenarios covering smart travel, smart freight and smart sanitation. It has entered the commercial operation stage of autonomous driving, and has formed five major product matrices including autonomous taxis (Robotaxi), autonomous minibuses (Robobus), autonomous freight vehicles (Robovan), autonomous sanitation vehicles (Robosweeper), and advanced intelligent driving (Advanced Driving Solution). It provides a variety of services such as online car-hailing, on-demand public transportation, same-city freight, smart sanitation, and advanced intelligent driving solutions.

At the end of November 2019, WeRide launched the country's first Robotaxi commercial operation service that is fully open to the public, covering 144.65 square kilometers of core urban open roads in Guangzhou's Huangpu District and Guangzhou Development Zone.

At present, WeRide Robotaxi has been open for operation in many cities including Nanjing, Ordos, Beijing, Guangzhou, Abu Dhabi, UAE, etc., and has achieved full commercial scene coverage of urban roads and highways in the high-level demonstration area of ​​autonomous driving in Beijing.

Continuous opening up to the outside world has made WeRide one of the companies with the most experience in operating Robotaxi, and the operating service has now exceeded 1,600 days.

WeRide's autonomous driving Robobus, referred to as WeRide Minibus, adopts a fully unmanned driving design without a cockpit. It can reach a maximum speed of 40 kilometers per hour. It is equipped with a full-stack software and hardware solution independently developed by WeRide, which can safely and efficiently handle various complex urban traffic conditions.

At present, WeRide Minibus has carried out road testing and operations in nearly 30 cities at home and abroad, including Guangzhou, Beijing, Wuxi, Nanjing, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, etc., and will officially open the country's first commercial charging operation service for autonomous driving minibuses on December 30, 2023.

Following the self-driving minibus, WeRide once again launched the pre-installed mass-produced self-driving sanitation vehicle Robosweeper, and will conduct public road tests in the entire Nansha District of Guangzhou from May 2022.

WeRide's autonomous sanitation vehicle is jointly developed by WeRide and Yutong Group. It is developed for cleaning and sanitation of municipal roads and adopts a cockpit-free design. In unmanned driving mode, it can carry out various urban sanitation operations such as road cleaning, sprinkling water to reduce dust, and spraying disinfection.

WeRide has developed a dedicated cloud control platform for autonomous sanitation vehicles. Currently, WeRide's sanitation vehicles are already in operation in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dalian, Beijing, Zhengzhou, Dongguan, Singapore and other places.

In April 2024, WeRide released its second product for smart sanitation scenarios - the unmanned road sweeper S1.

WeRide, Jiangling Motors and ZTO Express Group jointly launched WeRide Robovan, an L4 autonomous driving freight vehicle, which uses the Jiangling Light Commercial Vehicle BEV model, is developed with a fully redundant chassis and is equipped with WeRide's full-stack software and hardware solutions.

On May 22, 2024, WeRide obtained the remote testing (unmanned) license and cargo testing license issued by the Guangzhou Municipal Government.

At present, WeRide has cooperated with a number of well-known Chinese logistics companies to implement a pilot project for commercial operation of autonomous urban freight in Guangzhou International Bio Island. During the pilot period, more than 50,000 pieces of cargo were transported every day.

WeRide and Bosch signed a strategic cooperation agreement on May 25, 2022 to jointly develop intelligent driving software and jointly promote the pre-installation mass production and market application of automotive-grade, mass-producible SAE L2-3 autonomous driving for passenger cars.

In the first half of 2024, WeRide's "Bosch China Advanced Intelligent Driving Solution", a collaboration between Bosch and WeRide, achieved mass production and delivery, and was successively installed on Chery Xingtu Xingjiyuan ES and Xingjiyuan ET, and advanced intelligent driving assistance functions such as OTA NEP highway pilot function and NEP city pilot (Beta version) were provided to end users.

Accelerate business expansion overseas

WeRide has already expanded its business overseas to multiple countries.

Since November 2021, WeRide has teamed up with its overseas partner Bayanat, a subsidiary of G42 Group, to launch Robotaxi services open to the public on Yas Island and Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, and quickly passed the road testing phase to achieve commercial operations on public roads, making Abu Dhabi the first city to operate Robotaxi services in the Middle East. This is also the first autonomous taxi (Robotaxi) service in the Middle East.

As of now, WeRide has been operating Robotaxi in the UAE for nearly three years, and its operating area has been continuously expanding from the initial small-scale demonstration area to the core economic development zone, serving local citizens and completing more than 20,000 orders.

In March 2023, WeRide officially moved into the China-UAE Capacity Cooperation Demonstration Park and established a local team to further accelerate the commercialization of autonomous driving in the UAE.

In July 2023, His Highness Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, announced at a cabinet meeting that the UAE approved the first autonomous driving road license and awarded it to WeRide, a world-leading autonomous driving technology company. This is also the first national-level full-domain autonomous driving road license in the Middle East and even the world. With this license, WeRide will carry out road testing and operations of various types of autonomous driving vehicles in the UAE.

In September 2022, WeRide announced a partnership with the Saudi Company for Artificial Intelligence (SCAI) to launch Saudi Arabia’s first Robobus dynamic demonstration route.

In September 2022, WeRide established a Singapore company, and in November of that year signed a memorandum of cooperation with Strides, a subsidiary of SMRT, the largest local public transportation operator in Singapore. The two parties plan to start testing and demonstration operations of autonomous vehicles in Singapore in 2023.

In terms of investment, SMRT and K3 Ventures, another well-known investment institution in Singapore, are both strategic investors of WeRide, and are a strong boost to WeRide's development in Singapore and Southeast Asian markets.

In June 2024, WeRide's autonomous driving minibus officially landed in Sentosa, Singapore, marking the official opening of Singapore's first pre-installed mass-produced L4 autonomous driving minibus manned operation route on public roads.

WeRide will set up a European team in 2023, expand its European business with Stuttgart as its branch, and discuss cooperation with Renault, an important investor. In May 2024, Renault Group, an important investor of WeRide, officially released its future autonomous driving strategy.

From May 26 to June 9, 2024, Renault, a senior partner of the French Open, and the French Tennis Federation will work with WeRide to provide the only L4 autonomous minibus passenger shuttle service at the tournament during the 2024 French Open.

In the future, WeRide will also work with Renault to build a local version of the L4 autonomous driving minibus that meets European needs.

Overall, WeRide has implemented autonomous driving technologies, products and services in overseas countries and regions such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Germany, and France, and established local partners and upstream and downstream relationships.

WeRide will continue to expand the scale of implementation and commercial revenue of autonomous driving technology, products and services in the above-mentioned countries and regions. On the other hand, WeRide will continue to expand its overseas areas and expand to more countries and regions such as East Asia, North Africa, and South America.

Yutong and Qiming Venture Partners are shareholders

WeRide has received multiple rounds of financing since its establishment. In January 2021, WeRide announced the completion of two rounds of financing, B2 and B3. The total financing amount of the B round reached US$310 million, becoming the first financing for autonomous driving in 2021. Yutong Group is the strategic lead investor in this round of financing. New investors also include CMC Capital, China Development Bank Equipment Fund, Guangdong Hengjian, Huajin Capital, and Chuangyin Capital. At the same time, existing shareholders such as Qiming Venture Partners, Sinovation Ventures, and Kinzon Capital continue to follow up.

In the first half of 2021, WeRide announced the successful completion of a US$310 million Series C financing round, with a post-investment valuation of US$3.3 billion. Investors in this round include IDG Capital, Ho-Venture Investment, Cornerstone Capital, Cypress Star, Cloud Nine Capital, K3 Ventures, etc. WeRide's previous investors CMC Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, and Lingfeng Capital continue to participate.

Before the IPO, Han Xu held 7.6% of the shares and had 31% of the voting rights; Li Yan held 6.3% of the shares and had 10.8% of the voting rights; and Duane Ziping Kuang held 8.5% of the shares and had 5.7% of the voting rights.

Among them, Han Xu is the founder and CEO of WeRide, an internationally renowned expert in computer vision and machine learning, and a pioneer in the development and application of driverless cars. He served as the chief scientist of autonomous driving at Baidu, is a tenured professor at the University of Missouri, and the director of the Computer Vision and Machine Learning Laboratory. He holds a doctorate from the University of Illinois.

Li Yan is the co-founder and CTO of WeRide. He is a top expert in computer vision and has extensive experience in R&D and application. He is responsible for designing the core technical framework of autonomous driving and managing a global team of software and hardware engineers.

Li Yan has worked as a core engineer at Facebook and Microsoft and is an early employee of Microsoft Research Asia. Li Yan holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Hua Zhong holds 2.6% of the shares and has 1.8% of the voting rights; Jennifer Xuan Li holds 3% of the shares and has 2% of the voting rights;

In addition, Yutong entities hold 17.9% of the shares and have 12.1% of the voting rights; Qiming entities hold 8.5% of the shares and have 5.7% of the voting rights; Alliance Ventures holds 6.1% of the shares and has 4.1% of the voting rights.

LeiDi was founded by media person Lei Jianping. Please indicate the source if reprinting.