According to media reports, Smart LiDAR Sensor System technology company RoboSense is preparing to go public in Hong Kong next year and plans to raise US$1 billion.
It is reported that Zou Jun, the former CFO of Autohome, has been appointed as the CFO of Sagitar Juchuang and is expected to handle the listing of Sagitar Juchuang. Zou Jun has served as CFO of China BAK Battery, GCL Company, Dangdang, and iDreamSky. He has conducted the listing of Autohome in Hong Kong and has rich experience in operating company listings.
According to public information, Sagitar Juchuang was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Shenzhen. It is currently the only company in the world to achieve mass production and delivery of the second-generation intelligent solid-state lidar for automobiles, and has obtained many automotive certifications. The company's designated vehicles include Xpeng Motors, BYD, GAC Aion, WM Motor, Jikrypton, Zhiji and other models.
Qiu Chunxin, 38, is the founder of Sagitar Juchuang. Before starting his business, he studied for a PhD at the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering and Automation of Harbin Institute of Technology.
The predecessor of Sagitar Juchuang is Qiu Chunxin’s outdoor mobile robot environment perception research group. Its main research direction is how to allow robots working in the field to extract environmental information.
Since the lidar and depth vision cameras used in the project are indispensable equipment, but there is almost no domestic field in this field, Qiu Chunxin discovered business opportunities. So after completing the project, a group of Harbin Institute of Technology project members who were good at algorithms decided to come out and make products. Qiu Chunxin used the research team as the initial team to create Sagitar Juchuang, and tried to develop robot vision solutions by himself, focusing on laser radar.
With the spirit of scientific research, Sagitar Juchuang quickly produced products. In 2015, Sagitar Jutron's static single-line radar products were ready for mass shipments. However, since autonomous driving had just emerged at that time and it was not realistic to enter the automobile market, Qiu Chunxin set his sights on the home decoration and construction industry, relying on the static single-line radar Sagitar Jutron to create The first product Seeker (non-real-time 3D laser scanner) was launched in the field of scene mapping. Seeker can directly scan out the interior modeling drawing of the room. On this basis, the designer only needs to design and render the renderings internally, and provide a design plan on the same day, which greatly improves the drawing efficiency of home decoration design.
After entering the construction industry, Qiu Chunxin found through market research that with the popularity of VR, panoramic house viewing has gradually become a hot trend in the real estate agency industry. Various large and small real estate brokerage companies are looking for services including VR house viewing solution including panoramic camera. Therefore, compared with the 3D static lidar that requires a complete solution, a panoramic camera that uses static 3D lidar to provide texture and color information may actually be a requirement that can be implemented faster.
So Qiu Chunxin immediately set up a panoramic house viewing project team and launched the second product IPANO. The product was named "House Viewing Artifact". It is a panoramic camera that can take panoramic shots of the house. To meet the needs of VR house viewing, in view of the inefficient work status of real estate agencies, it can improve the efficiency of house viewing and transaction matching rate. At the end of 2015, this product opened up the market in Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan and other places, and also brought considerable cash flow to the company.
However, “house viewing artifact” is not Sagitar Jutron’s vision. At that time, Google and Tesla had already begun to wave the flag for driverless driving. Driverless driving is undoubtedly the most imaginative future of lidar. market.
In 2016, Qiu Chunxin separated the product of this camera solution into an independent group operation, while the company's main focus is still on lidar.
It is not easy to develop lidar. The simplest lidar also needs to overcome the five mountains of optics, high-speed data processing technology, ranging algorithms, structural design, and motor control. From single line to multi-line improvement, in addition to motor In addition to the little change in control technology, the difficulty of the other four items has increased exponentially. Therefore, there are only a handful of manufacturers around the world that can make stable and usable multi-line lidar, but Sagitar Jutron is making rapid progress.
In October 2016, Sagitar Jutron developed a 16-line mechanical laser radar RS-LiDAR. In September 2017, it completed the mass production of 32 lines. In October, Sagitar released MEMS solid-state lidar. In May 2018, it cooperated with Alibaba's Cainiao to launch an unmanned logistics vehicle based on MEMS. .
In December 2019, Sagitar Juchuang passed the automotive industry’s IATF 16949 quality management system certification, which also means that it has obtained a “passport” to enter the global automotive market and is fully equipped to provide services to OEMs, Tier 1, etc. The company’s qualifications to supply.
In December 2020, the world's first automotive-grade MEMS solid-state lidar RS-LiDAR-M1 produced by Sagitar Jutron has been shipped in batches to North America.
In 2021, Sagitar Jutron became the first in the world to fully lock the solid-state lidar SOP version. After launching the SOP in Q2, it led the industry and realized the second-generation intelligent solid-state lidar vehicle for the first time. Standard mass production delivery.
Today, Sagitar Juchuang is the only company in the world to achieve mass production and delivery of the second-generation intelligent solid-state lidar for automobiles, leading the lidar industry into the "first year of mass production" and driving the intelligent solid-state lidar in many At the same time that the automobile brand's front-end vehicle specifications are being mass-produced, Qiu Chunxin will also receive an IPO.
In the sensor path of unmanned driving, there are three solutions: cameras, millimeter wave radar, and lidar.
Cameras are low-cost and have relatively mature image algorithms, but it is difficult to obtain accurate three-dimensional information and are greatly limited by ambient light. Millimeter-wave radar is penetrating to rain and fog, but it cannot accurately identify targets and can only be used in simple scenes.
Lidar’s detection range is farther than that of cameras, it can accurately obtain three-dimensional information of objects, and the amount of data detected far exceeds that of millimeter-wave radar, so it has become the most favorite environment of current autonomous driving manufacturers Perceive the solution.
However, the extremely high price of lidar has become a drag on the industry.
The Velodyne 64-line mechanical lidar used by Google and Baidu costs about 700,000 yuan, and the 16-line mechanical lidar also reaches 50,000 yuan. An unmanned vehicle costs 2 million yuan. Laser The cost of radar accounts for 30-40%.
In the early days, the only company that could produce lidar that met the needs of driverless driving was Velodyne. The company’s products were mainly mechanical lidar. Because mechanical lidar needs to continuously rotate the transmitter head to achieve dynamic The purpose of 3D scanning requires the configuration of rotating parts with large volume and weight. Therefore, the cost is high, the volume is large, and the lifespan is generally 1-2 years. It is difficult to apply to large-scale mass production models.
Until the emergence of hybrid solid-state lidar, this status quo began to be broken. In April 2015, at the SAE (Society Autonative Engineer) conference in the United States, the startup company Quanergy emerged and announced that it would launch a hybrid solid-state lidar the following year, priced at around US$250.
Hybrid solid-state lidar will use a completely different technology from Velodyne mechanical radar, relying on MEMS micro-mirrors to control the emission angle of the laser, thereby replacing the mechanical rotating structure, reducing costs while also shrinking the laser Radar volume improves resolution, controllability and stability.
This also broke Velodyne’s monopoly. Around 2018, Velodyne occupied nearly 80% of the market share in the field of driverless lidar. As many companies have entered the field of hybrid solid-state lidar, Velodyne's market share has continued to decline in recent years.
Another technology giant born in Shenzhen. Compared with giants such as Huawei and Tencent, Sagitar Juchuang is relatively young and has only developed in just 7 years since its establishment in 2014.
In the lidar segment, Sagitar Jutron beats Huawei, DJI and other manufacturers, ranking first in the country and second in the world. The "2021 LiDAR Application Report in the Automotive and Industrial Sector" released by Yole shows that Valeo ranks first, accounting for 28; RoboSense (Sagitar) accounts for 10, ranking second; Luminar, Livox (DJI) Five manufacturers, Denso, Continental, and Cepton, tied for third place with a share of 7; followed closely by Innoviz, Ibeo, Innovusion, Huawei, Hesai Technology, Innovusion, and Velodyne, all with a share of 7 3.
At present, domestic manufacturers such as Hesai, Sagitar, Huawei, and DJI are relatively leading. Hesai Technology, Sagitar Juchuang, etc. all have mechanical, hybrid solid-state and other product layouts. For pure products such as OPA and FLASH, Solid-state solutions are also stepping up research and development. Among them, Sagitar is also the first representative to enter the mass production stage of the second-generation hybrid solid-state lidar.
Based on cost reduction, large-scale mass production and commercial use of lidar may come sooner. According to this year's report from the United States, the global lidar market may reach US$921.2 million by 2022, with a compound annual growth rate of 18.5.
In China, as the transformation and upgrading of the "New Four Modernizations" of the automobile industry continue to accelerate, the "14th Five-Year Plan" national information plan also proposes to realize advanced autonomous driving applications above L3 level. As the system improves, more and more lidars will be mounted on bicycles.
Domestic smart electric vehicle companies have eagerly started the competition for the mass production of lidar front-end equipment. From the more than 200,000-level Xpeng P5 to the high-end luxury model Gaohe HiPhiZ, lidar seems to have already It has become the latest label for automobile intelligence and is on the eve of the outbreak.
Tianyancha shows that since its establishment, Sagitar Juchuang has received 10 rounds of financing. Investors include Alibaba’s smart logistics platform Cainiao Network, SAIC Group’s investment platform Shangqi Capital, BAIC Group, Haitong Securities, Fosun, Oriental Fortune, Kunzhong Capital, Guangdong Mint Investment, etc.
Judging from past financing, Sagitar Juchuang has received many blessings from giants such as the automobile industry, and there is no lack of strategic cooperation with automobile companies and peers. In December 2021, RoboSense received strategic investment from BYD this time and will further integrate into the "circle of friends" of the smart new energy automobile industry ecology.
It is worth noting that Hesai Technology, another domestic leader in lidar, had already submitted a prospectus for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board to the Shanghai Stock Exchange in January 2021. However, Hesai Technology also submitted its listing prospectus to the Shanghai Stock Exchange in March 2021. Submitted documents on May 5th, applied to withdraw the IPO application, and planned another listing opportunity.
With the termination of listing of Hesai Technology, it has also put a question mark on the optimism of the entire industry to a certain extent.
An automotive analyst said that the current difficulty in the core technology of domestic lidar lies in passing vehicle regulations, and the price needs to continue to decrease. The first condition for car manufacturers to select suppliers is to pass safety tests, followed by supply chain requirements, which need to meet stable supply throughout the vehicle life cycle.
However, the obstruction of Hesai Technology's IPO process did not affect the capital market's optimism about it. Soon after the failure of the capital market, Hesai Technology received a lot of capital support. June 2021. Hesai Technology announced the completion of Series D financing of more than US$300 million. Leading investors include Hillhouse Ventures, Xiaomi Group, Meituan, and CITIC Industrial Fund. Also participating in this round of financing are Huatai USD Fund and old shareholder Lightspeed China , Lightspeed Global, Qiming Venture Partners, etc., the capital parties behind it are also gathered together, which shows the popularity of the autonomous driving track.