Chinese premium battery electric vehicle (BEV) brand IM Motors, co-founded by state-owned automaker SAIC Motor, has secured another 1.4 billion yuan ($191.8 million) in a Series B1 round, roping in both state-owned and private investment firms.
The latest tranche marks the final close of the company’s Series B fundraising, bringing the total capital raised in the round to 9.4 billion yuan ($1.3 billion), according to a statement on December 25.
It had raised 8 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) in the first tranche of the Series B round in March from state-backed investors including Bank of China’s asset management unit, an investment arm of Agricultural Bank of China, and Shanghai government-backed Lingang Group. Chinese battery giant CATL, autonomous driving startup Momenta, and SAIC-invested battery firm QingTao Energy Development contributed to the new capital raise.
The funding is expected to accelerate IM Motors’ product launch, alongside the R&D of a digital chassis and Steer-by-Wire (SbW) systems — the defining features of an electric, or even an automated vehicle’s, architecture.
The Shanghai-based BEV brand — founded in 2020 by SAIC Motor, Alibaba Group, and ZJ Hi-Tech — plans to roll out two BEV models and two extended-range hybrid models in 2025.
IM Motors was among the biggest fundraisers in the Chinese EV space in 2024 behind BAIC Group’s indirect subsidiary BAIC BJEV’s 10.15 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) strategic round.
Other recent mega transactions in the Chinese EV space include CYVN Holdings’s $2.2 billion investment into EV maker NIO and Stellantis’s acquisition of a 21% stake in Leapmotor for $1.6 billion. Both deals were sealed in Q4 2023.
China’s EV sector is expected to record a domestic sales growth of 20% year-on-year to over 12 million vehicles in 2025, the Financial Times reported recently, citing estimates from four investment banks and research firms. This signifies that the world’s largest EV market has not lost steam even as sales in Europe and the US have stalled.
