NextEV has reportedly surpassed the $500 million mark in its bid to raise one billion in funding for the launch of its electric vehicle (EV) lineup, according to Bloomberg.
The China-based startup is aiming to enter into the sector with a new EV supercar, based on what’s been revealed so far (which isn’t much). Considering the names now revealed to be backing the venture, though, one would presume that there’s something solid behind this. Some of the bigger names include Joy Capital and Sequoia Capital.
Of course, considering the men behind the startup — the founder of car-pricing website Autohome, Li Xiang; and the chairman of the car-pricing portal Bitauto, William Li — the funding sources aren’t that surprising. These guys offer a lot of potential.
Electrek provides some further information:
The company has over 300 employees and they are mainly research and development staff. Much like Tesla’s high-end to mass volume strategy, NextEV chose to first develop a supercar and then move on to a mass-market vehicle which they plan to offer for about $50,000 in China.
Sequoia Capital and Joy Capital investing in NextEV is interesting because it goes against the trend we have been observing recently in the EV market. Chinese companies have been heavily investing in California-based EV companies like Atieva, Faraday Future, and LeTV. Some of these companies have received hundreds of millions in financing, but NextEV is ahead of the curve with half a billion and the money flow coming from the US and going to China instead of the other way around.
Considering the strong government-produced incentives in China for EVs, though — subsidies, easier license plate access, etc — growth in that market (a heavily polluted country) is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, making investment there seem fairly sensible.