According to the Star Daily on November 21, reporter Yang Xiaoxiao reported that Pony.ai has made new progress in its IPO in the USA.

A reporter from the Star Daily learned from informed sources that overseas investors are highly enthusiastic about Pony.ai's IPO, prompting the company to expand the IPO size from the originally planned 15 million ADS to 20 million ADS, an increase of 33.3%.

Pony.ai officially submitted its red herring prospectus to the SEC in the USA on November 14 and started its IPO, which will be listed on nasdaq. The aforementioned informed source told the reporter that Pony.ai was originally scheduled to officially enter the US stock market on November 21, but due to the subscription situation exceeding expectations, the original plan has changed, and the IPO pricing has been postponed until next week.

According to the prospectus, Pony.ai's issuance price range for this offering is between $11 and $13 per share. Additionally, according to US stock issuance regulations, Pony.ai's issuance size can be expanded to a maximum of 23 million ADS. If calculated at the highest issuance price and issuance size, plus approximately $0.1534 billion previously subscribed by multiple investors including GAC through private placement, Pony.ai could raise a maximum of $0.452 billion from this IPO in the USA.

Earlier this year, WenYan ZhiXing, which has already listed on nasdaq, ultimately raised $0.458 billion. On the day of listing, WenYan ZhiXing's stock rose over 27% at its peak, closing at $16.55 per share, up 6.77% from the offering price of $15.5 per share. As of press time, WenYan ZhiXing's stock price is reported at $17.7 per share, with a total market value of $4.86 billion.

Insiders analyzed for the Star Daily reporter that Pony.ai is being pursued by overseas investors mainly due to the optimistic outlook in the capital markets regarding the robotaxi model.

As autonomous driving has developed to the current stage, the technology has already been implemented and validated, and the next step is the large-scale commercial rollout. Furthermore, from the perspective of US-listed Chinese companies, industries such as e-commerce have actually passed their high growth period, while the robotaxi sector is still in a developmental blue ocean stage, and the market has not yet matured. There are actually not many industries left that can offer the capital greater imagination for growth, and robotaxi is one of them.

It can be seen that foreign capital seems to have rekindled enthusiasm for the self-driving car sector, especially for the business model of self-driving taxis.

At the end of October, Waymo, the self-driving car company under Google's parent company Alphabet, officially announced the completion of an oversubscribed financing round, totaling $5.6 billion. This financing was led by Alphabet, with participation from early investors Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Fidelity Investments, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price. It is reported that Waymo plans to use this funding to expand its self-driving taxi services in multiple locations, including Los Angeles in the USA, and to explore new markets.

However, at the beginning of last year, Waymo also initiated a layoff plan, and discussions about the self-driving sector entering a winter period became the prevailing tone of the industry at that time.

Industry insiders have stated that the current self-driving sector has entered a phase of "bottoming out and rebounding." The previous downturn was mainly due to a generally pessimistic attitude towards the real-world implementation of L4 technology, but as self-driving taxis began regular operations later on, more and more people have had a tangible experience with the commercialization of self-driving technology, seeing and experiencing robotaxis, which has ushered the development of self-driving cars into a new stage.

In the domestic primary market, data from the financial news platform show that there have been 102 investment and financing events in the self-driving sector. Reporters from the Star noted that full-stack self-driving solution providers are currently in later stages of financing, and several leading companies have emerged in that segment of self-driving solution providers, establishing an initial competitive landscape. Meanwhile, self-driving manufacturers in specific scenarios, including logistics and transportation within the industry chain, still have new entrants seeking early-stage financing in the capital markets.