Horizon Robotics raises $696M in Hong Kong's biggest IPO of 2024

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A bird's eye-view of two cars at an intersection. One car has a blue line in front of it, indicated it will pull in front of the other car.

Horizon Robotics said its SuperDrive system offers human-like autonomous driving. | Source: Horizon Robotics

Horizon Robotics, a Chinese developer of autonomous driving technology, is raising HK$5.4 billion ($696 million) from its initial public offering (IPO). According to Reuters, this is the largest IPO in Hong Kong in 2024. It is also the largest tech sector IPO in Hong Kong since SenseTime Group, an artificial intelligence company, raised $740 million in late 2021.

Established in 2015 by former Baidu employees, Horizon Robotics provides advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving (AD) systems for passenger vehicles. The company said it combines algorithms, software, and processing hardware to provide the core technologies for those systems.

It sold 1.355 billion shares in a price range of HK$3.73 to HK$3.99 each, according to Horizon’s filings. Alisoft China and Baidu, along with two other cornerstone investors, subscribed for $219.8 million worth of Horizon Robotics shares in the IPO, regulatory filings showed. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and China Securities International led the deal.

The Robot Report reached out to Horizon Robotics for comment on the IPO, but the company declined to comment.

Inside Horizon Robotics’ technology

Horizon offers a range of smart driving systems, which include integrated hardware and software, for scalable ADAS and AD. It offers three different systems with varying levels of autonomy. The first is Horizon Mono, which is a front ADAS system. Next is Horizon Pilot, which is made for driving and parking. Horizon Pilot enables highway pilot-assisted driving, automated parking assist, and high Navigation On Autopilot (NOA).

Finally, the company’s most mature system is the Horizon SuperDrive. The company said this is a full scenario smart driving system that can support highway, urban, and parking use cases. Its capabilities include:

Transformer-based end-to-end perception
Data-driven interactive predictive decision-making
Smooth driving to avoid obstacles, turn, brake, and yield
Assertive driving to merge, pass, change lanes, and navigate congested zones
Quick response time, rivaling human driving
Unprotected turns, U-turns, automatic lane changes, and more
Intelligent parking

All of its technology is based on its Journey series. These are automotive-grade products optimized for energy and cost-efficient smart driving systems. The latest version of this line of smart driving processing software is the Horizon Journey 6.

Earlier this year, the company announced a mass production plan for its SuperDrive system. Horizon Robotics said its SuperDrive system is on track to forge collaborations with several leading automotive brands and Tier-1 suppliers in the second quarter of 2024. By the fourth quarter of 2024, the company aims to finalize a mass-production-ready version, with the first SuperDrive-powered vehicle scheduled to roll off the production line by the third quarter of 2025.