Autonomous driving unicorn WeRide files for US IPO amid expansion plans in China, overseas

WeRide – a Cayman Islands holding company whose operations are mainly conducted by Guangzhou Wenyuan Zhixing Technology and its subsidiaries in mainland China – did not provide the amount of money it aims to raise from the Nasdaq listing, according to its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

WeRide, according to a Bloomberg report last March, planned to raise as much as US$500 million from its IPO, which would be the biggest US listing by a Chinese company since Beijing-based Didi – under the name Didi Global – raised US$4.4 billion when it went public in New York.

Still, most autonomous driving firms on the mainland are struggling to make a profit in the highly capital-intensive industry. This is also reflected in WeRide’s prospectus.

WeRide recorded a wider net loss of 1.9 billion yuan (US$262 million) in 2023, compared with a 1.3 billion yuan loss the previous year, as the company continued to pour huge resources on research and development. Revenue last year reached 401.8 million yuan, down 24 per cent from 2022.

In its prospectus, the company also warned that it faced “various legal and operational risks and uncertainties associated with being based in or having our operations primarily in mainland China and the complex and evolving PRC laws and regulations”.