Skateboard chassis and vehicle enterprise "PIX Moving" has completed Series B1 financing, and has cumulatively developed over 20 vehicle models. | 36Kr exclusive.
Written by Tian Zhe
Edited by Su Jianxun
36Kr has learned that PIX Moving recently completed its Series B1 round of financing, led by Zheshang Venture Capital. The funds come from the National SME Development Fund and Huzhou Chang Sanhe Holding Group. It is reported that the funds from this round of financing will be mainly used for the mass production and global market expansion of products such as PIX Robo-Bus and Robo-Shop.
PIX Moving was founded in 2017 and is committed to highly modularizing and integrating the vehicle structure through digital manufacturing technology and 3D printing capabilities to create vehicle models for different scenarios such as logistics, sanitation, passenger transportation, and commuting.
Currently, the PIX Moving team has more than 200 members, covering seven countries including Italy, the United States, India, and Japan, with R & D personnel accounting for more than 58%. Since its establishment in 2017, PIX Moving has applied for more than 200 patents in China, Europe, and the United States.
Yu Chuan, the founder and CEO of PIX Moving, told 36Kr that this is a new manufacturing method: The entire cycle for a traditional car company to develop a new vehicle model is usually three years or more, and the production process involves four major processes: stamping, welding, painting, and assembly. However, PIX Moving can omit the welding process through 3D printing technology.
This not only reduces the vehicle manufacturing time, shortening the cycle for PIX Moving to develop a new vehicle model to more than one year, but also integrates hundreds of automotive parts into one, making the vehicle body stronger and reducing manufacturing costs. Currently, the integrated die-casting advocated by Tesla integrates more than 70 die-casting parts.
Unlike many startups that complete the business closed loop in the local market first and then gradually expand overseas, PIX Moving has adopted a global market strategy since its establishment. The labor costs in regions such as Europe and Japan are relatively higher, and the application scenarios of autonomous driving and urban robots in these regions are more likely to form a business closed loop. Therefore, PIX Moving takes these as the core markets and gives priority to technology implementation and market penetration.
Currently, PIX Moving has produced and manufactured a variety of products such as driverless minibuses, driverless retail vehicles, and driverless cleaning vehicles, and its customers are located in more than 30 countries and regions around the world.
PIX Moving Driverless Minibus
Yu Chuan revealed that PIX Moving is also cooperating with a European startup OEM. The mass-produced vehicle model Robo-NEV produced through the skateboard chassis technology will be launched in the European market in 2025.
Robo-NEV
It is reported that PIX Moving has received orders worth hundreds of millions of yuan and has collaborated with more than 400 enterprises. It has developed more than 20 vehicle models and has two factories in China and Japan. However, the production capacity of PIX Moving's factories still cannot keep up with the delivery speed, so it plans to build new factories to expand production capacity.
Yu Chuan stated that the current skateboard chassis production and manufacturing market is still in its infancy. With the increase in market penetration, the vehicle models involved by PIX Moving will gradually expand from the field of autonomous driving to commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles.