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The end of the VR financing lull | China Venture Roundup Volume 26

Written by China Venture Roundup Published on   3 mins read

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China Venture Roundup Volume 26 covers China’s investment activity from March 1 – 7, 2021.

Understand what moves China tech with us — we roundup what you need to know about the local venture scene every Thursday morning 8am (SGT).

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Key trends

83 investments were tracked in the past week, totalling RMB 9.67 billion (USD 1.49 billion). Check out the complete industry and funding round breakdown in the full-version of China Venture Roundup.

Top IPOs of the week

Autohome (汽车之家) | Secondary listing application submitted to HKEX

Autohome (NYSE: ATHM) is a leading Chinese automotive trading platform. It offers subscription and advertising services that allow automobile dealers to market their inventories.

Autohome has three key sources of revenue: media services, sales lead generation, and online marketing. Its annual operating revenue in 2020 was RMB 8.66 billion (USD 1.33 billion), representing only a marginal increase of 2.83% year-on-year (YoY), according to its prospectus. The company plans to offer 30.3 million shares at a price range that caps at HKD 251.80 (USD 32.42) per share, raising up to USD 984 million through an impending secondary listing in Hong Kong.

Startups on our watchlist

Hokbee (货客蜂) | Series A

Hokbee, which was incubated by social commerce platform Wozaijia, provides supply chain services for home furniture dealers. The startup secured USD 25 million in a Series A round jointly led by Matrix Partners China and Cathay Capital. Funds will be channeled to strengthen Hokbee’s supply chain and deepen the company’s relationship with distributors. Upon completion of this Series A investment, Hokbee will be subsumed into a new retail group under Wozaijia.

Orka (又为智能) | Series A

Orka strives to improve the quality of life for those with hearing problems by leveraging AI and deep learning technologies to develop medical-grade hearing aids. The company also renders a complementary suite of services related to its core product—the Orka One, which was an honoree at the CES 2021 Innovation Award. The Orka One automatically filters noise from surrounding environments to improve the quality of speech transmission in real-time.

Top Investment Story 

After a financing lull in the VR space, Pico Interactive made headlines with the close of its Series B+ round. The company bagged RMB 242 million (USD 37.19 million) from Co-Stone Capital and two subsidiaries of China Construction Bank. This brings the total financing amount of Pico’s Series B and B+ rounds to RMB 435 million (USD 66.86 million).

In an interview with 36Kr, Zhou Hongwei, CEO of Pico, said he believes that VR gaming has higher user stickiness than video streaming services, giving Pico’s Neo series incredible market potential. Zhou also revealed that Pico plans to launch the third generation of Neo series—Neo 3—in the second quarter of 2021.

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MNCs in China

The Siemens Smart Infrastructure Truck Road Show is an innovative truck-based exhibition, designed to showcase the company’s vast solutions in the fields of smart power distribution, intelligent motor control, and smart buildings.

Kicking off in the Greater Bay Area on the southern coast of China, the Truck Road Show will visit Siemens’ customers and partners across over 70 Chinese cities in the next two years. Local industry players gathered for the opening ceremony in Shenzhen last week and explored opportunities for cooperation in green, low-carbon, and intelligent city technologies.

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