Chinese self-driving companies put on hold in U.S. listing due to tighter regulations?

Chinese self-driving startup Pony.ai has reportedly put its plans to go public in the U.S. with hold. Regarding the listing of Chinese companies in the US market, the Chinese government announced tightening regulations after the listing of Didi Chuxing, a car dispatch service, in July 2021, and Pony AI seems to have been affected by this as well.

PonyAI is an autonomous driving startup founded in 2016 by Google and former Baidu engineer James Feng. In China and parts of California, a robot taxi business is being developed with a driver on board to ensure safety.

PonyAI was aiming to go public on the U.S. stock market in order to secure funds for its autonomous driving business, but when Chinese dispatch service Didi Chuxing went public in the United States ahead of July 2021, Chinese regulators pointed out privacy issues and did so. instructed to delete the app. In response to data security risks, in order to defend national security and public interest, the Chinese government has enacted a new rule that requires tech companies with more than 1 million user data to go public when they go public, subject to a government-led security review. .

Ponyiani was aiming to be listed by October 2021 through the merger of a special acquisition purpose company (VectoIQ Acquisition II), but was listed because it did not obtain confirmation that its listing plan does not violate the new rules set by the government and is not subject to crackdown. The plan has been decided to be put on hold.

According to the report, Pony Ai said that it has no plans or plans to list it at the moment. In addition, it is said that it was not possible to obtain comments from the target of the merger or from the Chinese regulatory authorities. If the IPO plan had gone smoothly, the valuation would have been $12 billion. Accordingly, it is analyzed that there is a possibility that Pony AI may become one of the largest companies that have stopped listing in the United States due to regulatory influences. Related information can be found here.