Zeekr, the premium electric vehicle brand of China's largest private carmaker Geely, has reportedly unveiled that backers have committed to invest over $750 million in its Series A funding round. It now has a $13 billion post-money valuation.

EV is one of the few industries that continues to attract investors at a time where venture capital investment keeps declining in China.

The news of investment comes just two months after Zeekr claimed to have applied in secret for a U.S. initial public offering. At the time, sources claimed that the electric carmaker was looking for over $1 billion in proceeds at a valuation of over $10 billion.

Amnon Shashua, the founder and CEO of Mobileye; Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd., a Chinese battery company that also supplies for Tesla; in addition to three Chinese state-owned investment vehicles, Yuexiu Industrial Fund; Tongshang Fund; as well as Xin'an Intelligent Manufacturing Fund, are among the investors that have pledged to support Zeekr in its Series A round.

The funds raised will help Zeekr with its global expansion and technological research ambitions. The company has been rigorously expanding its global presence. In January, sources reported that the firm had about 3,000 vacant jobs in over 30 cities across the world, including some at its R&D headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, as well as Ningbo and Shanghai in China. Additionally, the automaker was also reported to be setting up shop in Silicon Valley.

Zeekr was established in March 2021 and received its first round of outside funding in August of that same year.

A total of $500 million were received from a group of strategic investors, including Intel Capital, Chinese user-generated video platform Bilibili, Intel's corporate venture capital arm CATL, Cathay Fortune Group, whose founder Yu Yong's holding corporation is a significant shareholder in CATL, and renowned Chinese private equity firm Boyu Capital.

Source credit: https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/12/china-ev-upstart-zeekr-750m/