600 million in financing, 10,000 orders! Unmanned delivery reaches the "match point"

Currently, driverless cars are being put into use at an accelerated pace, and unmanned delivery is seen as one of the key tracks that will be the first to break through the commercialization barriers.

Recently, Neolithic Huitong (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Neolithic") announced the completion of RMB 600 million in Series C financing, with investors including CICC Huirong, Qianhai Ark, CICC Qiyang, Yizhuang State Investment and Shell Capital. It is reported that this round of funds will be used to accelerate product technology research and development and national delivery deployment.

Capital flocks to bet on the future

As a key technology leading the future transformation of travel, driverless cars have always been the focus of capital betting on the "next trillion-dollar market."

According to statistics, there were more than 140 public financings in the field of unmanned driving in China in 2023, with a total disclosed financing amount of more than 20 billion yuan. The unmanned delivery track, which is in the spotlight, naturally attracted a large influx of funds.

Take Neolithic as an example. The company was established in February 2018 and received strategic financing from Oriza, Ideal Auto, and Yintai Investment in May of the same year. Since then, Ideal has continued to increase its investment and has become the second largest shareholder after Neolithic founder Yu Enyuan, holding 12.2689% of the shares.

Six years after its establishment, Neoshiki has now reached the C round. In addition to the undisclosed strategic financing, the A/A+/B/ round financing amounts have all exceeded 100 million yuan. The latest round of C round financing is as high as 600 million yuan, and the post-investment valuation is 4 billion yuan. In addition, the vice-ministerial-level central enterprise "national team" Yizhuang Guotou has also participated, which will undoubtedly help Neoshiki continue to make efforts in technology research and development and market expansion.

Earlier this month, Jiushi Intelligence, which is also targeting unmanned delivery like Xinshiqi, also completed a nearly US$100 million Series A financing, with Meituan and Baidu both among its shareholders.

The influx of huge amounts of capital not only confirms the bright prospects of the track, but also shows that it is really "burning money".

There are currently many companies in the industry that survive by relying on the "financing transfusion" model. They are too dependent on capital. Once the capital chain breaks, they may face a crisis of life and death.

How to recover the principal, commercialize the product on a large scale, achieve profitability, and ultimately move towards independent development is a major issue that all companies cannot avoid.

Road rights "Dongfeng" has a turning point

For driverless cars, in addition to technological breakthroughs, policy support is particularly important. After all, without the "order" from above, driverless cars cannot even get on the road.

In recent years, many cities in my country have successively introduced management measures to open up the testing and operation of unmanned vehicles, which has greatly promoted the development of the entire unmanned delivery industry.

Among them, the Neolithic Age, which benefited from the "timely rain", can be regarded as a major user of road rights.

Previously, when Shenzhen issued the first batch of 13 licenses, Neolithic obtained 11 of them; it monopolized the only license in Hainan’s first batch; and it also won the first batch of 180 licenses issued in Hangzhou…

According to CEO Yu Enyuan, the company has currently obtained road rights licenses for over 100,000 square kilometers in more than 30 provinces and cities in China, and has completed technical and commercial efficiency verification with a number of leading logistics and express delivery companies. Since 2024, it has won orders totaling nearly 10,000 units from multiple leading customers.

The batch of road licenses provides a basis for product testing and implementation, and the open policy shows that the government attaches great importance to and supports this emerging industry. It can be foreseen that as more cities relax restrictions, unmanned delivery vehicles will be everywhere in the streets in the near future.

Win the "last five kilometers"

If you want to achieve profitability, cost reduction is a key link.

For unmanned delivery vehicles, it is imaginable how difficult it is to reduce hardware manufacturing costs and operating costs while ensuring performance meets standards.

Since its establishment in 2018, Neolithic has completed five product iterations and upgrades. With each iteration, the performance of the product will be improved by 2-3 times, while the cost can be reduced by 30%.

At present, the cost of a single X3 has dropped to more than 70,000 yuan, further approaching the ideal operating cost range of 3,000-4,000 yuan per month.

In addition, Neolithic also put a lot of effort into the production and manufacturing process.

In 2019, Xinshiqi has built the country's first L4-level unmanned vehicle intelligent manufacturing factory and independently developed an automated calibration process, reducing the calibration time from the original 2 hours to only 4 minutes, which is conducive to the company's mass delivery and rapid market capture.

At present, the rapid development of emerging service industries such as express delivery, food delivery, and mobile retail has led to an increasing demand for efficient and low-cost logistics and distribution, which is an unlimited opportunity for unmanned vehicles to show their prowess.

Data shows that the last mile, or "micro-scale logistics and distribution", accounts for 40% of the total logistics costs. Faced with the problem of express delivery bottlenecks that cannot be completely solved even with a large number of additional staff, unmanned delivery vehicles can reduce costs by 60% through human-machine collaboration.

At the same time, unmanned retail is also heating up rapidly. Scenarios that previously required manpower can now be automated using unmanned vending trucks. From convenience stores, food delivery, fresh fruits and vegetables, to providing unmanned convenience services for corporate offices and residential areas, unmanned retail is moving towards pan-retailization.

Moreover, the rotation effect of the two major tracks is not isolated, but is superimposed and amplified on each other.

In the future, through refined management based on data operations, unmanned delivery and unmanned retail businesses may be able to be organically integrated into an integrated solution of "unmanned logistics + retail". This integrated development trend will greatly increase the application value of unmanned delivery vehicles and give rise to new business models and monetization channels.

The realistic motivation of the market's continued price increases and the increasingly mature development trend of unmanned delivery technology and products together constitute a "two-way driving force" that promotes the rapid development of the entire industry.

At present, the unmanned delivery industry is experiencing its best "trend period". If it can successfully break through the final commercialization barrier and enter the large-scale landing stage, Neolithic may lead the entire industry into the "Neolithic Age".