The founder asks for a monthly salary of 2 million yuan. The investor says, "This is draining the company."
Another drama of mutual accusations between a founder and investors has emerged in the venture capital circle!
It all started when Berlant, a well - known robot company in the industry, issued a board resolution announcement. The content was about the review of the "Proposal on the General Manager's Fixed Monthly Salary of 2 million Yuan", and the result was that it was not passed.
Among them, the mentioned general manager is Yin Rongzao, who also serves as the chairman of the company in addition to the position of general manager.
As for why such a proposal was put forward, the announcement stated that after the company delisted from the stock transfer system, its corporate reputation and market sales were severely affected. The company took a series of measures, but the impact was still significant. To encourage the company's general manager to continue to eliminate the above - mentioned negative impacts and turn the annual performance from loss to profit, it was proposed that starting from August 2025, the general manager of the company would have a fixed monthly salary of 2 million Yuan.
In simple terms, give the general manager 2 million Yuan as resources to solve the performance problem.
A sky - high salary of 2 million Yuan is enough to make a lot of workers and some executives of other companies envious. The key is that it is obviously unknown whether the company can turn from loss to profit after paying this 2 million Yuan.
Once such an outrageous request was exposed, it topped the hot search. Yin Rongzao also received a lot of criticism from netizens during this process.
However, in this farce, the investors must be more irritated than the netizens.
Junlan Investment, one of the investors in Berlant Robot, issued an open letter to all shareholders through Berlant's official WeChat account. In the letter, it directly pointed out that Yin Rongzao, the current chairman and general manager of Berlant Robot, was emptying Berlant through institutional design and humiliating shareholders. It also called on shareholders to vote in favor of amending the company's articles of association, restoring the normal governance structure, and removing Yin Rongzao from Berlant.
The open letter was issued in the name of Li Bozheng, the representative of Jiaxing Junlan, the tenth - largest shareholder of Berlant. He also revealed in the open letter that on July 29, 2025, Yin Rongzao, as the chairman, formally submitted a shocking proposal to the board of directors: all the company's net profits in the next ten years, minus one Yuan, would be used as his personal bonus.
"If this is not emptying the company, then what is? If this is not humiliating shareholders, then what is the bottom line?" Li Bozheng said in the open letter.
2 million Yuan Fixed Monthly Salary, Investors' Uprising
Ultimately, this proposal was not passed with 1 vote in favor and 4 votes against. It is normal for the directors to oppose it. Currently, the company is in a loss - making state. It seems a bit of a fantasy to increase the salary and benefits before making a profit.
According to the financial data disclosed by Berlant, from 2020 to 2023, Berlant's operating income and net profit have been continuously declining.
In 2022, Berlant's operating income dropped from 447 million Yuan in 2020 to just over 300 million Yuan, and its net profit changed from 73.833 million Yuan to a loss of 53 million Yuan. By 2023, it was even worse. The operating income was 200 million Yuan, and the net loss was 125 million Yuan, with the performance being halved. Although there was a slight recovery in 2024, it was still in a loss - making state.
While the company's performance was declining, the founder proposed to give himself a high fixed monthly salary, which naturally made people feel dissatisfied.
Regarding this incident, the investors reacted most strongly. In the open letter of Li Bozheng, the representative of Junlan, several crimes of Yin Rongzao were clearly revealed, and the words were as sharp as knives.
He said in the letter that Berlant's current achievements are inseparable from the hard work and dedication of many managers, engineers, and marketing personnel. However, today, due to the long - term manipulation and institutional hijacking of one person, it has fallen into an unprecedented crisis. And that person is Yin Rongzao.
Li Bozheng also accused Yin Rongzao of not being a technology founder but a person who emptied Berlant through institutional design, and his control power also came from his "monkey - stealing - peach" operation.
It is reported that the reason he obtained control was that in the early days of the company, taking advantage of the booming New Third Board market and high valuations, he fabricated stories and introduced capital for high - valuation financing.
In this round of financing, the real technology team and core management were arranged to reduce their shares and cash out, and almost all the funds obtained were transferred by Yin Rongzao to the "Rongzao No. 1 Fund" under his control. Subsequently, with the voting rights and board seats arranged by this fund, he completed the "privatization" of Berlant's governance structure.
After that, Yin Rongzao took advantage of his position in the company to amass wealth for himself. His means included a 2 - million - Yuan fixed monthly salary and the year - end bonus mentioned later.
"If this is not emptying the company, then what is? If this is not humiliating shareholders, then what is the bottom line?" Li Bozheng said indignantly.
It is worth mentioning that according to Li Bozheng, Yin Rongzao's actions have been going on for many years. He chose to speak out at this moment because the Rongzao No. 1 Fund controlled by Yin Rongzao was recently liquidated with the help of lawyers sent by the investors, and all the voting rights have returned to the original investors.
In Li Bozheng's statement, Yin Rongzao seized the company's control through improper means, and the 2 - million - Yuan monthly salary was a further expansion of his desires. Since the fund under Yin Rongzao's control has just been liquidated and the time is right, he spoke out at this moment.
On the surface, this is a drama of investors scolding the founder for his greed, but in fact, it is a story of investors lying in wait secretly and finally launching an uprising under the pretext of a salary increase. With such a dramatic plot like a novel, one can only clap and say it's wonderful.
According to the company's semi - annual report in 2025, Jiaxing Junlan Investment holds 1.54% of Berlant's shares and is the tenth - largest shareholder of the company.
According to Li Bozheng, the Rongzao No. 1 Fund under Yin Rongzao has been liquidated recently, and all the voting rights have returned to the original investors.
This means that Yin Rongzao no longer has the 40% voting rights he previously packaged through the fund and has lost the foundation to manipulate the board of directors and the company's fate. The reason why the investors chose to rise up at this time is to try to rebuild the institutional bottom line of Berlant.
Net Profit as Personal Bonus, Directors Must Be Company Employees
Perhaps compared with today's Unitree and Zhipu, Berlant is not very well - known, but it is also a well - established veteran in the robot industry.
Data shows that Berlant Robot Co., Ltd. was established in 2008 and is headquartered in Dongguan, Guangdong Province. It is a technology company dedicated to the independent research and development of domestic industrial robots. Its product types include general - purpose robots, stamping robots, palletizing robots, collaborative robots, parallel robots, etc. Yin Rongzao is one of the co - founders of the company.
It is reported that in 2014, Berlant became the first company in the country to be listed on the New Third Board outside the national high - tech industrial development zones. During its development, it obtained qualifications such as a national specialized and sophisticated "little giant" enterprise and a key robot enterprise in Guangdong Province. In 2015, due to the robot concept on the New Third Board, Berlant was pursued by capital, and its stock price soared all the way, attracting market attention.
The founder, Yin Rongzao, is even a controversial figure. He once shouted the slogan of "trillion - yuan market value" and was given the nickname of the "madman" of the New Third Board.
According to Berlant's disclosure, Yin Rongzao was born in January 1980 and graduated from Hunan Changde Electromechanical Engineering School with a major in mechanical manufacturing, holding a secondary vocational school diploma. In May 2008, Yin Rongzao, Deng Gongzhao, Yang Yihua, and He Yingming jointly invested to establish Dongguan Berlant Automation Technology Co., Ltd. (the former name of Berlant).
Previously, when Yin Rongzao was interviewed by the media, he once said, "Berlant's concept is to make robots with the highest cost - performance ratio. Just like the growth of the Chinese automobile market, it is to produce cars that ordinary people can afford, such as Chery. Only in this way can Berlant gradually achieve the goals of one billion - yuan and ten - billion - yuan levels."
Under Yin Rongzao's resounding slogan, the company was in a good situation in 2020, with an annual operating income of 447 million Yuan and a net profit of up to 73.833 million Yuan.
However, the turn of events was sudden.
Since 2021, the company's performance has taken a sharp turn for the worse. That year, the net profit turned from profit to loss, recording a loss of 2.18 million Yuan. This was just the beginning of the decline: in 2022, the loss increased to 47.11 million Yuan; by 2023, the loss soared dramatically to 125 million Yuan. In just three years, the profitability of this former star company has undergone a dramatic reversal.
In addition to asking for a fixed monthly salary of 2 million Yuan for himself, he also put forward the strange requirement that "in the next ten years, all the company's net profits, minus one Yuan, will be used as his personal bonus."
What does this mean? It means that hundreds of people in the company have worked hard for ten years, and all the achievements will finally end up in his pocket, and the shareholders can only share that one Yuan.
Taking the company as his own ATM, amassing wealth wantonly, and ignoring the interests of all shareholders and employees. This is not just an ugly way of doing things; it's like tearing off the fig leaf and trampling on it.
In addition, in April 2025, Yin Rongzao completed the amendment of the company's articles of association. Article 105 was changed to: "The company's directors must be selected from the employees who have signed labor contracts or service contracts with Berlant."
Li Bozheng believes that this means that without Yin Rongzao's consent, shareholders can no longer send directors to safeguard their rights; by controlling "who is an employee", Yin Rongzao further controls the right to nominate board seats, and finally forms a power closed - loop where "external shareholders can't get in and internal employees dare not oppose."
This kind of worry is not unfounded. Previously, Berlant's board of directors stated that the proposal of Li Bozheng and others to "change the company's board of directors from being composed of 7 directors to 5 directors and propose that Li Bozheng serve as a director of the company" did not conform to the company's current articles of association, which stipulate that "the board of directors is composed of 7 directors, with a chairman and no independent directors. Directors must be selected from the employees/service personnel who have signed labor contracts or service contracts with Berlant."
According to the announcement, on August 4, Berlant issued an announcement about adding a temporary proposal to the first extraordinary general meeting of shareholders in 2025. Shareholders Jiaxing Junlan, Shaanxi Aerospace Huitong Private Equity Fund Management Co., Ltd., and Li Bozheng, who hold a total of 3.0970% of the issued voting shares, proposed to add three proposals, which respectively involve amending the company's articles of association, re - electing directors, and not disposing of the shares of its subsidiary Huacheng Industrial Control without the board's resolution.
A fixed monthly salary of 2 million Yuan, all the company's net profit as personal year - end bonus, and directors must be his own people. A series of strange requirements show a disregard for shareholders, and it's no wonder that the investors are angry.
History of Mutual Accusations between Venture Capitalists and Founders
Speaking of which, the last time such a drama happened was back in January 2023.
At that time, Zheng Gang, the founder of Zihui Venture Capital, accused Luo Yonghao of "four crimes" on his WeChat Moments. First, he didn't hold shareholders' meetings and board meetings for three years; second, he was a snob and "curried favor" with US - dollar funds (such as Li Feng and Zhang Ying); third, he offered a shabby agreement to let investors give up billions of yuan in buy - backs; fourth, he didn't know how to be grateful.
Since then, the former brothers have turned against each other.
It is not difficult to find that once a conflict occurs between a founder and an investor, the solution is not private communication. Instead, they expose it to the public and engage in mutual accusations, using the popularity of the founder or investor to stir up public opinion.
The "2 - million - Yuan monthly salary farce" of Berlant is not an isolated case. In the history of Chinese venture capital, there have been many cases where founders were "rebelled against" by investors due to excessive pursuit of interests or manipulation of the governance structure. These conflicts often revolve around three core contradictions: the struggle for control, the imbalance of interest distribution, and loopholes in the governance system.
In 2012, Wu Changjiang, the founder of NVC Lighting, a leading company in the lighting industry, had a fierce conflict with Yan Yan of SAIF Partners. Wu Changjiang tried to transfer the company's assets through related - party transactions and was removed by the board of directors. Subsequently, he incited employees to go on strike and suppliers to cut off supplies, and even introduced a new investor, Dehao Runda, to fight for control. This years - long melee finally ended with Wu Changjiang being imprisoned for misappropriating funds, and the company's market value evaporated by more than 80%. The crux of the problem was that the founder regarded the enterprise as his "private territory", while the capital side tried to break in as a "barbarian", and neither side established a governance framework that respected the rules.
In 2015, Vanke was targeted by Baoneng Group. Wang Shi publicly accused Baoneng of being a "barbarian". This struggle exposed the fatal flaw in the governance of A - share companies. Vanke, with a dispersed equity structure and no AB - share system, had its management holding only 4% of the shares and was unable to resist the raid of external capital. Although Wang Shi finally joined forces with Shenzhen Metro to repel Baoneng, the protracted battle caused Vanke to miss the golden period of transformation, and its industry status was overtaken by Country Garden and Evergrande. Similar to Berlant, Yin Rongzao's amendment of the articles of association to require that "directors must be employees" is actually to completely isolate external shareholders from the decision - making level through institutional design.
In 2020, Luckin Coffee self - exposed a financial fraud of 2.2 billion yuan. Behind it was the Lu Zhengyao family cashing out through equity pledges and related - party transactions. Institutional investors such as Lone Pine Capital and Citron Research jointly filed a lawsuit, forcing Lu Zhengyao out. In this case, the capital side cleaned up the founder team in a "cut - off - the - wrist" way, but the company still paid the price of delisting and sky - high compensation. In contrast, the open letter of Junlan Investment is an attempt to copy this "capital alliance" model, taking advantage of the opportunity of the re - distribution of voting rights after the liquidation of the Rongzao No. 1 Fund to unite minority shareholders to fight back.
After all, the emergence of the above farces is due to the violation of the spirit of contract.
There are many stories in the market where investors and founders cherish each other and finally succeed and get rich together. But all of this is based on the guarantee of a contract.
As Li Bozheng of Junlan Investment said, "This is not a war against one person but a correction of a system." When the mutual accusations between venture capitalists and founders are upgraded from gossip topics to governance models, Chinese enterprises can truly break out of the cycle of "power hijacking interests".
As for where this farce of Berlant will go, only time will tell.