On September 10th, the China-heardquartered automaker new force BYTON brought its first model, Byton M-Byte, to the Frankfurt Motor Show to showcase its production models. At the same time, it finally announced the financing progress. According to reports, BYTON’s C-round financing is coming to an end, the estimated financing scale is 500 million US dollars, the participating investors include China FAW Group and the industrial investment fund of the Nanjing Municipal Government. Among them, FAW Group has recently signed an investment agreement with BYTON to participate in the C-round financing.
Public information shows that the company has received three rounds of financing so far. At the beginning of the project, in December 2016, Hexie Auto and Jinheng Investment jointly invested in Pre-A rounds of the company. In August 2017, BYTON received a total of 240 million US dollars of A-round investment including Suning, Fullshare Holdings and Nanjing State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. On June 11, 2018, BYTON announced the completion of B-round financing, with a total financing of 500 million US dollars, FAW Group accounted for the largest amount in this round of financing, with an investment of 265 million US dollars.
In fact, as early as May 2019, BYTON announced that the company was carrying out the latest round of financing of about 500 million US dollars. Although it did not disclose more details, it was said that details would be released in June. However, as time went by, BYTON did not announce the progress of financing.
In September 2018, FAW Xiali announced that it would transfer 100% equity of FAW Huali to Nanjing Future Mobility Corporation Ltd. at a price of 1 yuan, Future Mobility Corporation is right the BYTON. Although the equity transfer fee is only 1 yuan, Future Mobility Corporation also needs to pay Huali Company’s payable employee pay of 54.62 million yuan, and the 800 million yuan debt owed by Huali Automobile, of which the debt of 800 million yuan need to be repaid in installments by September 30, 2019.
However, on June 24, 2019, FAW Xiali issued an announcement that Future Mobility Corporation did not pay the debts owed, so FAW Xiali was still not handed over to Future Mobility Corporation. This means that the company has not yet obtained the qualification for building car, and its progress in car construction has also been postponed.
The C-round of financing may ease the financial pressure of BYTON to a certain extent and promote the listing of products. According to reports, the construction of the factory in BYTON Nanjing has been basically completed. The five major process workshops of stamping, welding, painting, final assembly and battery have been completed and the installation of major equipment has been completed. In October this year, the factory will begin trial production. The first car, BYTON M-Byte, is scheduled to begin mass production in mid-2020, and will be delivered to Chinese consumers first. It is expected to accept reservations in Europe and North America in 2020 and officially enter the European and American markets in 2021.
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