A Gigafactory startup. Uber exodus continues. Connected car financings.
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Chinese money continues to pour into newcomer EV brands, with Detroit Electric securing $1.8B from a Chinese energy group and Baidu reportedly weighing a $100M stake in NextEV/NIO.
These investments come despite the recent cash crunch of LeEco founder Jia Yueting, who has been linked to grand automotive ambitions including LeSEE, Faraday Future, and Lucid Motors. (The entrance of Chinese brands and investors was just one topic we covered in our 72-page deep dive into the state of EV tech.)
The heavy influence of Chinese money is no surprise, given the country’s affinity for heavy industry, dominance in key rare earth metals for li-ion battery production, and ubiquitous pollution fueling private and public sector support for EVs.
To that last point, the Chinese government’s latest proposed EV mandate calls for a 12% EV target of all new sales by 2020, which would be no small feat in the world’s largest new car market.
Stuttgart’s startup blitz continues
Since we profiled their activity last month, Daimler has shown no signs of slowing their pace in the tech startup space. Coming right off a $82M Series G into Chargepoint, this week the automaker joined Shell’s venture arm in a fresh round to delivery optimization startup tiramizoo.
The company has now backed or acquired a new target nearly every week this year, a stark contrast to the company’s pre-2016 pace of just two or three deals per year.
CB Insights subscribers can easily keep pace with Daimler’s investment plays, acquisitions targets, and patents activity here, as well as break down the strategy of thousands of other corporations with the full CBI analytics suite.
