Nio seeks public investment

The Chinese EV startup is looking to enter the stock market and is aiming for an investment sum of 1.8 billion dollars. The application paperwork is currently underway.

Nio is also not the only Chinese EV manufacturers currently looking to gather fresh capital for expansion and development ahead of the expected EV boom.

The first reports concerning the public investment plans by Nio were published in early March. At the time, talk was of 2 to 3 billion dollars, which the company hoped to collect in financing. The Shanghai based company then planned to finance their expansion and invest in areas such as autonomous driving technology and batteries.

At the end of last year, Nio presented their debut model for the Chinese market: The ES8 is an electric SUV with seven seats and an exchangeable battery. The successful market launch set Nio ahead of their competition, many of whom are still stuck in the concept stage.

In November 2017, Nio also manage to gather 1 billion dollars in a financing round, pushing their net worth to about 5 billion dollars. The money was partially invested by previous investor Tencent. Furthermore, Nio also announced founding a joint venture with the Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC).

Simultaneously, Electra Meccanica is also launching efforts on the stock market: The Canadian manufacturer of the three-wheeled BEV Solo, has announced their intention to sell about 2.3 million shares at $4.25, aiming to raise about 10 million dollars. The company plans to use the fresh capital to finalize serial production for their debut model.

auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com, cnbc.com, bloomberg.com, canada.autonews.com (Electra Meccanica)