The super unicorn that raised 2 billion has stopped production.
Author: Zhang Xue
A sudden notice has hit the pause button on this self-driving super unicorn.
On November 22, all on-the-job employees of Haomo.AI suddenly received an internal email titled "Notice of Suspension of Work and Leave": Based on the company's current operating situation, it was decided that all employees of the company and its branches would enter a state of suspension of work and leave starting from November 24. The specific resumption time will be notified separately.
Multiple employees confirmed through the media and social software that the content of the notice is true. The company has fully entered a state of standstill, and its accounts have also been frozen. The specific compensation plan and subsequent arrangements that employees are most concerned about have not been clarified yet.
There was a time when Haomo.AI was regarded as the domestic version of the American star self-driving company Cruise. Unexpectedly, after a few years, the fates of the two companies have followed the same pre-written ending - in February this year, Cruise exited the stage of history, and its technological legacy was integrated into General Motors.
From "Beloved Son" to "Abandoned Child"
Founded in 2019, Haomo.AI is a latecomer in the self-driving field. At the time of its establishment, the global self-driving industry was at a critical stage of transitioning from blind enthusiasm to rational pursuit, and the first batch of startups were also entering the crucial test of mass production. Therefore, whether it was the industry climate or capital investment, Haomo.AI came a bit late.
However, these did not become obstacles to Haomo.AI's start. It even became the focus of the industry as a dark horse.
Of course, this is mainly because it was born with a halo. Different from most self-driving companies, Haomo.AI was spun off from the traditional automaker Great Wall Motors. Its predecessor was the intelligent driving forward-looking division of the Great Wall Motors Technology Center.
It is reported that in 2018, Wei Jianjun, the chairman of Great Wall Motors, was worried about falling behind in the industry transformation, so he began to adjust the strategy and organizational structure. One of the cores was to do subtraction, spin off the parts business, establish independent parts companies, and seek independent listing.
Among them, self-driving is the core of future competition. Wei Jianjun hoped that Great Wall Motors could also achieve full-stack self-research. However, due to limited talent and funds, after several weighings, it was decided to establish Haomo.AI.
At the same time, the executive lineup of Haomo.AI is also luxurious. The chairman and CIO are Zhang Kai and Zhen Longbao, both of whom are long - serving and trusted veterans of Great Wall. Zhang Kai once served as the deputy chief engineer of Great Wall Motors' technology and the director of the intelligent driving system development department of Great Wall Motors. In addition, its CEO is Gu Weihao, who once served as the general manager of Baidu's intelligent vehicle business unit and has 16 years of self-driving R & D experience. This personnel configuration also implies Great Wall Motors' expectations and high hopes for Haomo.AI.
Moreover, in the second year after Haomo.AI was established, Great Wall Motors launched the Coffee Intelligence Driving "331 Strategy" for it, aiming to achieve three leading positions in three years: the largest user scale in the industry, the best user experience evaluation, and the most comprehensive coverage of scenario functions, and to create a leader in self-driving in the intelligent era. At the same time, Great Wall Motors also announced that all models of its sub - brands would be equipped with Haomo.AI's intelligent driving products.
So far, Great Wall Motors has become the third automaker in the world, after Tesla and XPeng Motors, to officially launch the full-stack self-developed navigation-assisted driving system NOH.
Relying on a big tree to enjoy the shade, in terms of technological R & D and mass production, Haomo.AI has also achieved latecomer advantage and become one of the most promising companies in the Chinese intelligent driving track.
For example, it has built the self-driving data intelligent system MANA and released the self-driving cognitive large model DriveGPT. Another example is that its HPilot system has been successfully implemented in more than 20 models such as Wei brand and Haval. By the end of 2021, Haomo.AI had achieved revenues of over 100 million yuan and became the self-driving company with the fastest short-term revenue growth in China. As of 2024, the total intelligent driving mileage of Haomo.AI users has exceeded 250 million kilometers.
However, unexpectedly, after a short period of glory, Haomo.AI began to decline: the delivery of new products was delayed, and Great Wall Motors started looking for "alternatives". A series of crises followed one after another.
In the eyes of the outside world, the direct reason for Haomo.AI's decline lies in the long-delayed implementation of the urban NOH. In this function, Haomo.AI got off to an early start but ended up late. In 2022, Haomo.AI launched the urban NOH and claimed that the first model to be equipped would be the Great Wall Wei brand Mocha DHT - PHEV lidar version, which was expected to be delivered in the fourth quarter of that year and launched in 10 cities by the end of the year, with the scope of use planned to be expanded to 100 cities in 2023.
However, the result was that the Wei brand Mocha DHT - PHEV was launched as scheduled, but the urban NOH function was not launched as promised, which also laid the groundwork for Haomo.AI to go from being a beloved child to an abandoned one.
In this regard, the self-media Cyber Auto learned from a person close to Great Wall Motors that "after Haomo.AI gave assurances to the group, Great Wall Motors had been waiting. The long-delayed implementation made Mu Feng (the president of Great Wall Motors), who always demands trustworthiness, unhappy, and he began to look outside. Yuanrong Qixing was mainly decided by Mu Feng."
In March 2024, Yuanrong Qixing began to provide end-to-end intelligent driving solutions for Great Wall Motors and received exclusive investment from Great Wall Motors. Not only Yuanrong Qixing, but in the past two years, Great Wall Motors has also carried out in-depth cooperation with DJI Vehicle (Zhuoyu). As Great Wall Motors tilted more resources and business towards external suppliers, Haomo.AI was gradually marginalized.
Hillhouse and Meituan Placed Bets, Planned to Go Public in 2025
The fate of Haomo.AI is quite sad. Looking back on its short development history of nearly six years, many investment institutions have also appeared. Behind it are not only industrial players such as Great Wall Motors, Meituan, and Qualcomm, but also financial investors such as Hillhouse, Jiuzhi, and Shoucheng Holdings, as well as local state-owned assets from places like Chengdu, Huzhou, and Zhangjiagang.
According to CVsource of Touzhong Jiachuan, since its establishment, Haomo.AI has completed a total of 7 rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing amount of about 2 billion yuan. The largest amount was the Series A financing officially announced at the end of 2021, with an amount of 1 billion yuan. The investors included Meituan, Hillhouse Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Shoucheng Holdings, Jiuzhi Capital, etc. This round of financing attracted a lot of attention at that time. After this round of financing, Haomo.AI officially entered the unicorn club, with a post - investment valuation of over 1 billion US dollars.
Source: CVSource of Touzhong Jiachuan
Similarly, this year was also a year of high - frequency financing for Haomo.AI. In addition to the Series A financing, it also completed the angel round financing and the Pre - A round financing in February. In the Pre - A round financing, Shougang Fund led the investment, and capitals such as Meituan and Hillhouse Ventures followed.
Perhaps because the revenue in 2021 was eye - catching enough, or perhaps because it received enough financing in 2021, in the following two years, except for one round of financing in 2022, Haomo.AI rarely took actions in terms of capital.
The turning point occurred in 2024. Gradually marginalized by Great Wall Motors, Haomo.AI began to introduce external funds and orders. At the beginning of 2024, the first round of financing in the self-driving track in the new year happened to Haomo.AI. Haomo.AI officially called this round of financing the B1 round, with a total amount of over 100 million yuan, invested by Chengdu Wufa Fund. Two months later, Haomo.AI received capital injection from its old shareholder Jiuzhi Capital and Huzhou.
It can be seen that starting from the Series B, Haomo.AI has consciously sought the support of local state - owned assets, which is closely related to the local layout and preferences. More fundamentally, it may already have an IPO schedule.
According to public information, Haomo.AI proposed a plan to list on the Science and Technology Innovation Board for an IPO as early as 2020 and hoped to successfully complete the IPO in 2023. However, due to the tightened review of listings on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, this plan did not come true. In 2023, there were rumors that Haomo.AI was considering listing in Hong Kong in 2024, with an expected fundraising of 300 million to 400 million US dollars at that time, but there was no further news soon after.
In October 2024, there was news that Wei Jianjun had internally stopped Haomo.AI's plan to list in Hong Kong. In response, Zhang Kai, the chairman of Haomo.AI, denied this and clearly gave the listing schedule, "It should be in 2025". The final result is obvious. Haomo.AI did not wait for the IPO or the life - saving money from financing.
In terms of equity, through in - depth penetration, the actual controller of Haomo.AI is still Wei Jianjun, the chairman of Great Wall Motor Company Limited. In addition to the Great Wall system, the second - largest shareholder is Zhangjiagang, holding 12.19% of the shares, while Hillhouse Ventures, Meituan, and Qualcomm hold approximately 5.28%, 3.61%, and 0.90% of the shares respectively.
Turbulence Has Lasted for Nearly a Year
Although Haomo.AI's standstill seems sudden to the outside world, internal turmoil has long emerged.
As early as last year, there were reports that Haomo.AI had launched a layoff plan. Although the scale of that layoff was not small, it did not cause serious damage. After all, the laid - off employees were compensated according to the "N + 1" standard, and Haomo.AI also responded that it was "a normal organizational structure adjustment of the company".
As time entered 2025, Haomo.AI began to experience frequent departures of senior executives. In April, Ai Rui, the technical vice - president of Haomo.AI, Cai Na, the product vice - president, and Wang Jia, the brand official of intelligent driving, successively chose to leave. Soon after, there were even rumors that Chairman Zhang Kai was also going to leave. Although Zhang Kai himself quickly denied this news, it still could not calm people's hearts.
According to employees' feedback, the company's cash flow was very tight in October this year. The "ongoing financing" that the senior management had previously promised to the employees had not been realized for a long time. The September salary, which was originally scheduled to be paid on October 25, had not arrived by the end of October, and the company did not give any explanation.
At the business level, Haomo.AI's two major core businesses - passenger car assisted driving and low - speed unmanned terminal logistics - are both facing severe challenges. In the former business, Haomo.AI only has two model projects, which are planned to be delivered in 2025. In the latter business, the sales target in 2025 has dropped sharply, and the business seems to have entered the "inventory clearance stage".
On November 29 last year, on the occasion of its fifth anniversary, the senior management of Haomo.AI predicted in an internal letter that the industry would enter a "life - and - death" competition period and called on all employees to maintain a sense of crisis and persevere.
Looking back now, this prediction was indeed forward - looking. Not long ago, Touzhongwang mentioned in "A Company Has Raised Funds for the C13th Round" that the investment enthusiasm in self - driving is returning. Not only has the financing amount exceeded 10 billion yuan within a month, but the flow of funds is also more concentrated towards giants, and the Matthew effect is obvious.
Unfortunately, even though the senior management of Haomo.AI predicted the industry trend in advance, they failed to save the company from trouble. In the future, whether Haomo.AI will fall into a worse situation or be acquired by an automaker like Cruise, the initiative now lies in the hands of Great Wall Motors. Its experience also sounds an alarm for all "second - generation startups" attached to a single giant.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Touzhongwang", author: Zhang Xue, reprinted by 36Kr with permission.