Sunwoda Electric Vehicle Battery (EVB), an electric vehicle battery solutions provider affiliated to Chinese publicly-listed Sunwoda Electronic, has secured 1.65 billion yuan ($228.3 million) in an equity financing round.
A total of eight domestic investors have joined the round, including BOC Financial Asset Investment, CCB Private Equity Investment Management, CCB Investment, and Chongqing Manufacturing Industry Transformation and Upgrading Fund, the parent firm disclosed in a filing with the Shenzhen stock exchange (SZSE) on June 21.
A 10-billion-yuan ($1.4 billion) fund managed by China Life Private Equity Investment, the private equity arm under Beijing-headquartered life insurance major China Life Insurance Company, is also among one of the investors.
Post-financing the eight investors will hold a total of 4.46% equity stake in the EV battery arm; while Sunwoda Huizhou New Energy, a subsidiary of Sunwoda Electronic, will see its equity stake in the EV battery arm drop from 42.42% to 40.47%, per the filing.
The parent company said in the filing that the financing round will help the subsidiary reduce the debt burden as well as improve the profitability level.
The funding comes 10 months after Sunwoda EVB pocketed 6 billion yuan ($875.1 million) in a Series A funding round from investors including food delivery giant Meituan last August. Prior to that, the firm raked in 2.43 billion yuan ($354.5 million) from 19 investors led by Nasdaq- and Hong Kong-listed EV company Li Auto as well as state-owned automakers GAC Group and SAIC Motor.
Founded in 1997, Sunwoda made its foray into EV battery in 2008. The EV battery unity offers battery pack solutions for new energy vehicle companies in China with the use of advanced lithium battery integration technology. In February, the EV battery unit was reportedly mulling to raise up to 4 billion yuan ($580 million) in fresh funding prior to its initial public offering in Shanghai’s STAR market, per Bloomberg.