NANJING, China, Oct. 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Huatai International Private Equity Fund (“HTPE”), the Greater China focused private equity investment platform under Huatai Securities, is pleased to announce that it newly completed an investment in Nanjing SemiDrive Semiconductor Technology Co. Ltd. (“SemiDrive” or the “Company”), a leading next-generation automotive chip company in China. HTPE believes that SemiDrive will take advantage of the fast-evolving business landscape in the context of domestic substitution in China, and enhance HTPE’s portfolio exposure in the semiconductor industry.
Founded in 2018, SemiDrive is one of the few companies in China’s automotive chip industry with a well-established team and extensive mass production experience. SemiDrive is dedicated to offering the automotive industry high-reliability and high-performance automotive-grade chips, which are applied in smart car cockpits, central gateways, autonomous driving system, and MCUs. In 2019, SemiDrive became the first Chinese semiconductor company to pass the ISO 26262 functional safety management system certification. Moreover, SemiDrive launched the 9 Series SoC in 2020 and received 1-million-piece chip order in March 2021 despite the industry-wide chip shortage. In April of 2021, the company released the upgraded version for its entire chip lineup. At the 2021 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, SemiDrive announced the launch of the UniDrive autonomous driving platform. As of today, SemiDrive has formed partnerships with a slew of automakers, tier-1 suppliers and technology developers like FAW Group and China Automotive Innovation Corporation. SemiDrive has spent the past 3 years quickly growing and accumulating experience so that “DOER” has become the company’s most prominent label.
Mr. Yang Lei, Managing Partner of HTPE, commented: “Smart cars will play an increasingly crucial role of the norm of technological innovation after smart phones, while automotive chips, as the ‘brain’ of smart cars, are the key physical foundation to realize such automobile intellectualization. Therefore, we believe that automotive chips are bound to experience robust evolution in the near future. Thanks to the management team’s extensive industry experiences, outstanding technical capabilities, and forward-looking strategy, SemiDrive has been able to launch multiple flagship products within 3 years and managed to distinguish itself from a number of peers. We are confident that SemiDrive is well positioned to grow into a world-class automotive chip supplier, ushering in the revolution in global automotive industry.
Our investment in SemiDrive is a firm vote of confidence in China’s long term growth potential in semiconductor as well as a strong testament to HTPE’s strategy to empower and integrate domestic semiconductor industry chain both horizontally and vertically. We strive to contribute our strength to chip ecosystem upgrade under unprecedented new challenges as well as new opportunities nowadays.”
About SemiDrive
Founded in June 2018, SemiDrive is a high-tech enterprise focusing on high-reliability and high-performance automotive SoC. With its headquater in Nanjing, SemiDrive has R&D centers in Shanghai and Beijing, and an office in Shenzhen. The SemiDrive R&D team members have worked over 12 years in SoC industry on average. It is one of the few teams nation-wide with full experience in product definition, technology R&D and mass production of vehicle grade SoC.
About HTPE
Huatai International Private Equity Fund (“HTPE”) is a USD private equity fund under Huatai Securities, one of China’s largest financial conglomerates. HTPE is focused on mid-to late-stage significant minority growth equity and mid-market buyout investment opportunities in China and beyond, covering healthcare, semiconductor, hard tech, TMT, and consumer sector. The core investment team is comprised of investment veterans with more than ten years of experience in private equity and capital markets. Leveraging on Huatai’s solid platforms and networks in China and worldwide, HTPE utilizes a unique multi-pronged strategy and integrates its global best practice, broad know-how, deep industry understanding, as well as comprehensive local expertise and experience to capture high growth potential across a variety of sectors, to identify and work with top-notch companies with promising capabilities at different stages.
Since its first close, HTPE has made a number of investments, including Hesai Technology, a China-based global leading Lidar manufacturer; Yuga Group, a leading Chinese cosmetics packaging solution supplier; SemiDrive, a leading automotive chip company in China; and SJ Semiconductor Co., a leading MEOL foundry in China.