Disputes, Employee Misconduct Rattle Centerview’s Silicon Valley DreamsRead more

Xiaopeng founder He Xiaopeng spoke at a conference in Beijing in April.

China’s Hot Electric Car Market Gets Jolt of Alibaba Money

Photo: Xiaopeng founder He Xiaopeng spoke at a conference in Beijing in April.

While Tesla struggles to meet investors’ expectations, its young Chinese counterparts are raising money at soaring valuations on hopes that China’s electric vehicle market will zoom ahead in the coming years.

Xiaopeng Motors, backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba, is in talks to raise $600 million to $700 million from Alibaba and other investors at a valuation close to $4 billion, people familiar with the discussions said. The previously unreported fundraising will be a combination of U.S. dollars and Chinese yuan. It comes months after the four-year-old startup, which uses Xpeng as its brand name, raised about $350 million in January in a round led by Alibaba and Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer. Xpeng’s spokeswoman declined to comment on fundraising plans.

Access on the go
View stories on our mobile app and tune into our weekly podcast.
Join live video Q&A’s
Deep-dive into topics like startups and autonomous vehicles with our top reporters and other executives.
Enjoy a clutter-free experience
Read without any banner ads.
Former Apple design chief Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photos by Getty.
Exclusive
Designer Jony Ive and OpenAI’s Sam Altman Discuss AI Hardware Project
Jony Ive, the renowned designer of the iPhone, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have been discussing building a new AI hardware device, according to two people familiar with the conversations.
From left to right: Blair Effron, Robert Pruzan and David Handler. Photos by Getty; Tidal Partners.
Exclusive Finance
Disputes, Employee Misconduct Rattle Centerview’s Silicon Valley Dreams
The San Francisco Bay Area–based bankers at Centerview Partners, the investment bank that advised Silicon Valley Bank’s owner and Credit Suisse through recent turmoil, got two doses of bad news last week.
From left, a Google TPU, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian. Photos via Getty, Google and YouTube.
Exclusive google semiconductors
To Reduce AI Costs, Google Wants to Ditch Broadcom as Its TPU Server Chip Supplier
Google executives have extensively discussed dropping Broadcom as a supplier of artificial intelligence chips as early as 2027, according to a person with direct knowledge of the effort.
Art by Clark Miller
Exclusive startups entertainment
MasterClass Takes a Crash Course in Frugality
MasterClass had a problem with the shoot featuring its latest star instructor, Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger.
Photos via Eiso Kant (left) and YouTube/VMWare Tanzu (right)
AI Agenda startups ai
How GitHub Copilot’s Co-Creator Raised $126 Million to Compete with His Former Employer
Recent interest in artificial intelligence has focused on large-language models that aim to do everything from writing Shakespearean poetry to solving math riddles.
Art by Clark Miller
The Big Read policy
Europe Has Figured Out How to Tame Big Tech. Can the U.S. Learn Its Tricks?
Late last month in Belgium, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had a pressing question for Paul Tang, a Dutch politician and member of the European Parliament.