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Self-driving startup WeRide to go public in the US
The Chinese self-driving car maker said it plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol “WRD,” according to an F-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. The company did not disclose how many shares it plans to sell or its expected price range.
WeRide said in a filing that it lost $268 million last year on revenue of $55 million.
WeRide’s IPO could be the largest IPO by a Chinese company in the U.S. since ride-sharing company DiDi Global’s $4.4 billion IPO in 2021, according to Bloomberg. The news agency reported last year that WeRide had filed for a non-disclosure agreement to raise up to $500 million in an IPO.
WeRide, which makes robot buses, robot taxis, robot vacuums, and related sensor suites, received a valuation of about $4.4 billion in a March 2022 funding round.
WeRide said in a filing that current investor Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance has agreed to purchase shares in the IPO through a private placement.
WeRide competes with Tesla, Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Waymo, General Motors’ (GM) Cruise LLC and Pony.ai in the self-driving technology field.
WeRide’s IPO is being led by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and China International Capital.
