HONG KONG–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Guotai Junan International Holdings Limited (“Guotai Junan International”, “GTJAI”, the “Company” or “Group”, stock code: 1788.HK) announced that it has successfully participated in the Series B financing of Plus.ai (“Plus”), the world’s leading self-driving truck technology company. This financing was led by private equity team of GTJAI, joined hands with investors such as CPE, Hedosophia, FountainVest, ClearVue, SAIC Capital, Sequoia Capital, Manbang Group, Quanta Computer and old shareholders. Jointly support Plus to realize the mass production of a new generation of high-level self-driving heavy trucks and accelerate the global commercialization and deployment of its automated heavy trucks.

Assists Plus with Implementation of Mass-produced Self-Driving Heavy Trucks as well as its Global Commercialization

The injection of new capital will further assist the global commercialization of Plus and promote the application of mass-produced self-driving heavy trucks. At present, Plus has established in-depth strategic partnerships with a number of heavy-truck OEMs and logistics fleets. In China, Plus has assisted FAW Jiefang, a leading commercial vehicle company, to launch a high-level self-driving heavy truck J7 L3, which will be mass-produced and launched in mid-2021; At the same time, Plus and SF Express, the Chinese logistics giant, have achieved normalized commercial trial operations. In the United States, Plus will also simultaneously launch mass-produced automated driving products in 2021 to serve leading logistics customers.

Plus is an international technology company with Level 4¹ R&D capabilities, focusing on the R&D and application of self-driving heavy trucks in expressway transportation. Plus was founded in 2016 in Silicon Valley, USA, and has R&D centers in California, Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, etc. and is committed to improving road safety, reducing fuel consumption, increasing fleet efficiency, and transforming the logistics and transportation industry. Plus received A+ round of financing in 2018. Past shareholders include Sequoia Capital, GoldenSand Capital, China Growth Capital, Lightspeed Capital, Mayfield, SAIC, etc.

Note 1: Level 4 is highly automated driving. The driving automation system continuously performs all dynamic driving tasks and tasks takeover within its designed operating conditions. When the system issues a takeover request, if the passenger does not respond, the system has the ability to automatically reach the minimum risk state.

Once again Deploys in a Revolutionary New Economy

Peter Chiu, the company’s Head of the Private Equity Investment and Managing Director, said, the world’s freight industry has a huge potential market. Self-driving truck technology can solve many pain points in the heavy truck industry by reducing manual control, reducing bad driving habits, achieving fuel saving and cost reduction and improving use safety, which can help environmental protection and sustainable development. GTJAI values the huge truck freight market, Plus’s global team, excellent technology and in-depth cooperation with global strategic partners, and hopes that through the cooperation with Plus, it will support the accelerated implementation of the truck-assisted driving in trunk logistics scene and automated driving industry.

In recent years, automated driving has become an important breakthrough in the transformation and upgrading of the automotive industry, and it is also the key to the technological transformation of the smart logistics industry. GTJAI once again deploys in a revolutionary new economic field. While supporting innovative businesses, it also lays the foundation for providing its wealth management clients with a more high-quality product portfolio in the future, and promotes the efficient integration and development of various businesses of the Group. More importantly, based on the positive feedback from specific new economic industries on carbon emissions and renewable energy, the Group has set an industry example of sustainable finance with actual business support.

Private Equity Business of GTJAI

GTJAI strategically deployed private equity investment in 2020 and established the private equity investment team, which is responsible for screening, researching, and introducing private equity investment in scientific research and innovation and participating in strategic mergers and acquisitions. Due to technological innovation and structural economic changes, the AI, big data, biomedicine and other technologies and industries in China are at a turning point in explosive growth. The innovative investment market is huge, with high appreciation potential and high returns. GTJAI seizes the opportunities, macroscopically analyzes the sci-tech innovation, and carefully deploys them. The types of investment projects of the private equity investment business include (i) AI; (ii) automated driving + logistics; (iii) industrial Internet; and (iv) biomedicine and other fields.

About GTJAI

Guotai Junan International (“GTJAI“, Stock Code: 1788.HK) is the market leader and first mover for internationalization of Chinese Securities Company. The Company is the first Chinese securities broker listed on the Main Board of The Hong Kong Stock Exchange by way of initial public offering. Based in Hong Kong, the Company provides diversified integrated financial services. The core services include wealth management, corporate finance, loans and financing, asset management as well as financial products. Currently, GTJAI has been assigned “Baa2 / Prime-2” and “BBB+ / A-2” rating from Moody and Standard & Poor respectively. The controlling shareholder, Guotai Junan Securities Company Limited (Stock Code: 601211.SS; 2611.HK), is the comprehensive financial provider with a long-term, sustainable and overall leading position in the Chinese securities industry. For more information about GTJAI, please visit http://www.gtjai.com.