China’s Chunqing Technology, a subsidiary of Geely-owned Farizon New Energy Commercial Vehicle Group, has claimed a post-money valuation of over $1.5 billion after raising $135 million in its latest funding round.
Chunqing, which specialises in methanol hybrid new energy vehicle (NEV) technology, announced on Wednesday the completion of its Series Pre-A+ round with capital from multiple strategic investors to “step up market presence and accelerate the build-up of ecosystem resources”.
Following the new investment, the Tianjin-based subsidiary aims to “further strengthen capabilities in jointly developing the methanol vehicle industry with ecosystem partners,” it said. Chunqing did not specify the investors in its Series Pre-A+ round.
The new investment comes less than 11 months after Chunqing secured $100 million in an initial funding round at a pre-money valuation of $1 billion. The investors in the earlier round remain undisclosed.
As of September 2024, Chunqing was more than 80% owned by Geely’s billionaire founder Eric Li Shufu and his associates, according to a stock exchange filing.
The subsidiary of Hangzhou-based Farizon, a maker of hybrid- and pure-electric commercial vehicles, was founded in 2022 to integrate Farizon’s fully-commercialised methanol hybrid technology, resources, and facilities into one green platform to connect methanol-to-hydrogen commercial vehicles, refuelling solutions, freights, logistics finance, and other related services.
Chunqing offers holistic solutions for the operations, repair, and maintenance of methanol-to-hydrogen commercial vehicles, which adopt methanol as a carrier of hydrogen to enable its ease of storage and transport, without the need for intensive capital investments in new infrastructure.
Its parent Farizon, which was started in 2014 by Chinese carmaker Geely Automobile Holdings, delivered its 300,000th commercial NEV at the start of August. Farizon produces and markets various types of methanol-to-hydrogen commercial vehicles, such as light- and heavy-duty trucks, vans, and buses, mainly targeting use cases including the short- to long-distance transportation of concrete and hazardous goods like oils, gas, and chemical products.
Farizon closed its Series A round at $600 million in July 2023 from lead investors Boyu Capital and Yuexiu Industrial Fund, to further investment in tech and product R&D, as well as its expansion outside of China.
In October 2022, it raised over $300 million in a Series Pre-A round led by GLP’s private equity (PE) arm Hidden Hill Capital.
The Geely group reported revenues of 107.3 billion yuan ($14.7 billion) in the first half of 2024, up 46.6% year-over-year. The net profit attributable to shareholders grew 574.7% from the prior year to 10.6 billion yuan ($1.5 billion).
Geely said in its August financial report that electrified and NEVs accounted for “a substantial portion of this growth”. With 320,000 units sold in H1, the share of electrified vehicle sales within Geely’s total sales portfolio expanded to 33.5% from 21.8% in 2023.
