Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer XPeng, backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has raised nearly $400 million from investors including Xiaomi Corp to fund its growth, said two people with knowledge of the matter.
The fundraising comes at what bankers and industry insiders describe as an increasingly tough financing environment for Chinese EV startups which must jostle for attention in a crowded sector and produce convincing arguments about future profitability despite government cuts to EV subsidies and plans to phase them out.
The latest fundraising values the five-year-old firm, founded by 42-year-old tech entrepreneur He Xiaopeng, at nearly $4 billion, higher than