By Mackenzie Tatananni and Al Root
U.S. investors have a new way to buy in as self-driving cars proliferate.
Shares of Pony AI, a Chinese autonomous-driving company, made their U.S. trading debut Wednesday after the pricing of the company's initial public offering. The stock opened at $15 and at last check was up 17% to $15.24.
The company, which manufactures sensors and software for self-driving vehicles, announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 20 million American depositary shares at $13 each, the high end of the expected range. It gives the company a market value of about $4.5 billion with some 350 million shares outstanding after the offering.
Total gross proceeds from the deal, including private placements, are expected to reach about $413 million. If underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional stock, the number can climb to $452 million.
The stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Wednesday under the ticker symbol "PONY." The offering is expected to close on Friday. Goldman Sachs, BofA Securities, Deutsche Bank, Huatai Securities, and Tiger Brokers were the underwriters for the IPO.
Pony brands itself as one of the first to offer autonomous robotaxi services "with substantial safety benefits and compelling passenger experience" in China. Today, it operates a fleet of 250 robotaxis and 190 robotrucks in China and has partnered with Toyota and GMTC to catalyze the mass production of self-driving vehicles.
Its "Virtual Driver" technology uses AI-trained software with sensing hardware including global positioning systems, optical cameras, radar, and lidar, or laser-based radar.
The AI-trained approach is similar to Tesla's self-driving technology. Tesla plans to launch robotaxi service in the U.S. late in 2025.
Tesla, however, relies on only optical cameras to provide its vehicles with the eyes required to achieve self-driving. Investors still debate the mix of sensing hardware required to build truly autonomous cars.
Tesla's highest-level driver assistance products still require human supervision. But Americans have robotaxi options too. Alphabet's Waymo completes 150,000 driverless taxi rides in the U.S. each week.
Pony AI reported a loss of $93.9 million and revenue of $39.5 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30., compared with a year-earlier loss of $104.6 million and revenue of $21.3 million.
Pony's robotruck business is its largest right now, generating sales of about $27.5 million through the end of September. The robotaxi business generated sales of $4.7 million. The balance of the company's sales come from technology licensing and applications.
Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 27, 2024 11:31 ET (16:31 GMT)
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