One of the largest electric vehicle startup NIO which is also a rival of Tesla has reportedly has made its market debut on the US stock market with a $1 billion IPO (initial public offering).
The company’s basic motive behind this move is to boost up the production of its electric vehicles as well as and expand their EV infrastructure. With this IPO, the company has become the first Chinese-backed electric vehicle startup to go public in the US. The startup was backed by Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. Last year, NIO raised up to $600 million in its latest financing round led by Baidu.
“We had actually a healthy book and then some orders got pulled or reduced because of market conditions,” NIO’s chief financial officer, Louis Hsieh, said.
It was last month that an announcement was made regarding Nio’s plans to raise $1.3 billion through a US IPO. And now finally, the company officially started trading on the NYSE and it confirmed that it actually raised a lot less than it first aimed to.
“NIO Inc., a pioneer in China’s premium electric vehicle market, today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 160,000,000 American depositary shares (ADSs) at a price to the public of US$6.26 per ADS for a total offering size of approximately US$1.0 billion, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their option to purchase additional ADSs,” said the company.
The electric vehicle space is getting a lot of attraction these days and companies in the space are growing at a great pace. Similarly, NIO is also investing a lot of efforts and emphasis on EV infrastructure and operating their own service centers and charging networks. The company lately told about its ambitious infrastructure plans, which includes things like mobile charging stations inside electric vans, several electric car service centers, and battery swap stations.
Talking about the production, the company has, as of now, produced about 2,000 NIO ES8 all-electric SUVs. NIO also plans to use the funds to launch its second electric vehicle, a smaller and cheaper SUV.