Jiangsu YKC New Energy Technology Completes Series B2 Financing

NANJING, China, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Jiangsu YKC New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (YKC), China's leading renewable energy IoT service provider, has formally announced the completion of its Series B2 financing with investment from NIO Capital. Investment for the company's Series B1 and Series A rounds came from CATL and GLP, respectively. From a world leading logistics provider and power battery giant, to top-of-the-line car maker, YKC's rapid development benefited from the booming electric vehicle (EV) market and related support facilities in China.

Expanding market: China's EV market on the verge of entering a period of accelerated growth

From 2014 to 2021, China's charging pile market has evolved from a policy-driven model to a market-driven one. Data from Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China and the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance (EVCIPA) shows that as of the first half of 2021, China was home to 6.03 million EVs and approximately 1.95 million charging piles, with a vehicle-pile ratio of nearly 3-to-1. According to the Chinese government's plan for the development of the EV sector, the country's vehicle-pile ratio will gradually migrate to 1-to-1, meaning that there is still huge growth potential for the build out of a charging pile infrastructure. The size of such a construction market is expected to climb to a valuation in the trillions of yuan.

"In August 2021, China's EV market witnessed a retail penetration rate of 17.1%," said Frank N. Chen COO of YKC. "As we observed with China's experience in the development of smartphone and mobile payment technologies, when the market penetration rate of a sector approaches 10%, growth of the sector shifts into overdrive. From this, we can conclude that China's EV market will see explosive growth in the coming years."

Massive opportunity: China's EV charging pile operators will start out highly fragmented

China's EV market is huge, and the growth trend of charging piles as an essential support facility needs to be understood. China's charging pile investment market is expected to continue to see the emergence of a large number of regional pile operators.

Mr. Chen, YKC COO continued, "China has a huge demand for public charging piles and is home to various application scenarios, including public stations, private stations and destination-specific charging stations. The massive demand for public charging piles has led to the diversification of investment entities in China. In addition, the highly fragmented ownership of parking spaces has contributed to the localization and decentralization of charging station investors."

Although local charging pile operations have an advantage regarding investment, the owners of such entities generally do not choose to build their own charging pile platforms, but rather partner with professional charging pile platforms due to a lack of technology and high costs. YKC, as the largest third-party charging IoT SaaS platform in China, has become their first choice.

YKC joins hands with CATL and NIO Capital to build a charging ecosystem

Available data from YKC shows that as of August 2021, the YKC platform-based charging business had established a footprint in more than 300 cities and was, at that time, servicing more than 2,500 charging pile operators across China. The firm's lineup of directly connected charging piles ranks it first among third-party charging IoT SaaS platforms.

When commenting on the financing round, Managing Partner of NIO Capital, Zhu Yan, said: "NIO Capital recognized the value of YKC as a third-party charging IoT SaaS platform for charging pile operators throughout China. As a dark horse in the EV support infrastructure sector, YKC's potential for growth is immense."

In response to China's new infrastructure and carbon neutrality policies, YKC plans to join hands with leading industry players such as CATL and NIO Capital to further explore the opportunities presented by the current structure and likely consolidation of the industry in the future.

SOURCE Jiangsu YKC New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (YKC)