Jensen Huang invested in a top student from Fudan University.
In May 2022, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the United States released a puzzling set of data: the survey showed that the total mileage of vehicle travel across the United States in 2021 decreased by 1% compared to 33,000 miles in 2019. However, the number of people who died in traffic accidents in 2021 reached 42,900, setting the highest record since 2005. Meanwhile, the total number of deaths in 2021 increased by 10.5% compared to 2020, and this figure also set the highest growth rate since data recording began.
People drove less, but there were more accidents. What was going on?
Every life matters. Amid the huge public controversy, various institutions and relevant research teams quickly launched follow - up investigations and found the following data: in 2021, among all the recorded vehicle trips in the United States, 52% of the trips were less than 3 miles, and 28% were less than 1 mile. Meanwhile, the proportion of long - distance trips over 50 kilometers was less than 1%. Further analysis of these short - distance trips revealed that most of them were to local commercial areas for shopping, entertainment, and gatherings. Especially for those who had started a family, 88% of American families drove to large commercial areas at least once a week.
After sorting out a series of data, the answer gradually became clear: although people reduced their travel and tourism needs under the impact of the pandemic, basic necessities, food, clothing, housing, and entertainment were always essential. This led to more and more vehicle trips being concentrated in crowded areas such as shopping malls and supermarkets. Coupled with the fact that people get tired, their eyes get fatigued, and their attention is easily distracted, and the pandemic magnified this factor, the risk of traffic accidents increased exponentially.
So in that year, the NHTSA launched a "National Road Safety" program, which would invest up to $6 billion in five years for various tasks to reduce traffic accidents, of which $740 million would be used to invest in relevant safety technology upgrades. Steven Cliff, the then - deputy administrator of the NHTSA, issued such an appeal: "We are facing an imminent crisis in our transportation, which requires the participation of everyone - local governments, automobile manufacturers, and drivers."
Also in that year, autonomous driving, which had fewer "human factors" and seemed more convenient for big - data management, welcomed an unprecedented period of dividends. For example, Cruise, an autonomous driving unicorn, completed its last external financing before being acquired in 2022. SoftBank sold its shares to General Motors, and its valuation exceeded $30 billion. Another example is Waymo, a self - driving project incubated by Google for over 10 years. It launched a manned trial operation in 2022 and officially obtained a taxi operation license in Los Angeles at the end of the year.
In this revolutionary entrepreneurship wave, there was also a Chinese young man. The company he founded, Nuro, has become a super - unicorn in the field of autonomous driving. At its peak in 2021, its valuation reached as high as $8.6 billion (approximately RMB 61.435 billion). Recently, he also secured the support of Uber and Nvidia and successfully completed a Series E financing, raising $203 million in this round (approximately RMB 1.45 billion). Including this amount, Nuro has raised a total of $2.3 billion (approximately RMB 16.4 billion) since its establishment.
(Jensen Huang being interviewed next to a Nuro vehicle. Source: Zhu Jiajun's social media)
From a Fudan University Top Student to a Silicon Valley Genius
This Chinese young man who seized the opportunity is Zhu Jiajun, a very "standard" Chinese - American elite in Silicon Valley:
Zhu Jiajun. Source: Nuro official website
Zhu Jiajun received excellent "skill training" from a young age. He started learning painting at the age of 7 and won the first prize in an outdoor sketching competition in Shanghai and the second prize in a national oil - painting competition. After entering middle school, he showed his talent in mathematics and physics. He regarded Nikola Tesla, the legendary scientist who invented alternating current, as his idol and wrote a program to draw function graphs to help him with his homework. After graduating from high school, he was admitted to the Department of Computer Science at Fudan University as he wished and began to fully realize his potential. In his junior year, he developed a music - collaboration software and won the runner - up in the China region of the Microsoft Imagine Cup Global Student Software Competition, and got an internship opportunity at the Microsoft Research Institute.
From a chronological perspective, Zhu Jiajun's entrepreneurship story is also a standard struggle history of a Silicon Valley elite:
After graduating from undergraduate studies, Zhu Jiajun went to the University of Virginia to pursue a master's degree in computer science. During his studies, he actively participated in various academic exchange activities, and this led to a turning point in his life. During the SIGGRAPH (an academic forum for computer graphics and interactive technology), he was so fascinated by Google's booth that he couldn't leave. This successfully piqued the curiosity of Luc Vincent, one of the Google exhibitors and the founder of the Google Street View team.
Zhu Jiajun told Luc that his research topic was "restoring the location and 3D structure of buildings in a photo through analysis of flat photos." Luc told Zhu that his research direction was in line with Google Street View's needs, but Google Street View was not only satisfied with presenting a "3D world" but also planned to enter a field called "artificial intelligence" in the future to make the world presented by Google Street View more intelligent and vivid. "If you're interested, you can come to Google after graduation. Here's my business card."
Three months later, after completing his thesis defense, Zhu Jiajun sent an email to Luc and successfully got an internship opportunity at Google. On the first day of his internship, Luc gave Zhu all the key data of Google Street View and told him, "Do everything on your own. There are no specific tasks."
Then, just like all legendary entrepreneurship stories, the talent was recognized by the right person. Luc's full trust brought unexpected surprises. Zhu Jiajun developed a plugin called "click - to - go" in three weeks, which greatly optimized the user experience of Google Street View. Before that, users couldn't use Google Street View to take a "cyber walk" or move from one street view to another. They could only choose the forward direction through a given arrow in the software, which was very rigid. With "click - to - go", any point in the picture could become a starting or ending point.
This plugin completely impressed Luc, and the internship offer was directly turned into a job offer. After careful consideration, Zhu Jiajun accepted Luc's invitation, gave up his graduate courses at the University of Virginia, and officially joined Google, working at the Google X Lab.
At the X Lab, Zhu Jiajun had access to many cutting - edge projects, such as Project Glass (smart glasses) and Self - Driving Car (autonomous vehicles). He was responsible for the technology development of the "perception" part and led a simulation team called "Crystal ball". Later, it was this team that wrote the first - version perception system of Google's self - driving project, Waymo. Zhu Jiajun also became one of the five core members when Waymo was established.
At the X Lab, there was another team responsible for the development of vision, prediction, and scene - understanding technologies, called "Magic", led by Dave Ferguson. At the beginning of Waymo, he also became one of the five core members, undertook a large number of development tasks, and became good friends with Zhu Jiajun. This was also the starting point of Nuro's entrepreneurship story:
In 2016, after successfully developing "the world's first fully autonomous vehicle that could drive on public roads", Google decided to spin off the self - driving project and established an independent entity named Waymo under its parent company, Alphabet. During the structural adjustment, they gave core members like Zhu Jiajun and Dave two options: either sign an eight - year labor contract with Waymo and continue to lead the team, or take a severance package and leave the team to find other opportunities.
Both Zhu Jiajun and Dave chose the latter, and they each received a "severance package" of $40 million. A few weeks later, this money became the startup capital for their entrepreneurship, and Nuro was officially established. It is said that the name comes from the Arabic word "Nur", which means "angelic light". I think this statement is highly credible because the slogan on Nuro's official website also expresses this meaning: "Let everyone, every road, and every journey enjoy autonomous driving".
(Dave and Zhu Jiajun. Source: Zhu Jiajun's social media)
From unmanned delivery to autonomous driving
Zhu Jiajun's personal growth story is like a thrilling novel, and Nuro's growth path also seems similar. Since its establishment in 2016, it has never lacked support from the capital market:
In 2018, Nuro completed its first - round financing with a scale of up to $92 million, with investors being the well - known Greylock and Gaorong Capital. In 2019, SoftBank became a new investor in Nuro, with an investment scale of $940 million. Thus, Nuro crossed the unicorn threshold in just three years, and its valuation reached $2.7 billion. In 2020, Nuro completed a Series C financing led by T. Rowe Price Group, and its valuation soared to $5 billion again. In 2021, Nuro completed a Series D financing led by Tiger Global Management. Google, the former employer of Zhu Jiajun and Dave, also became an investor, and the valuation reached $8.6 billion.
However, such figures easily make people overlook the twists and turns in Nuro's development process:
Perhaps to find the Product - Market Fit (PMF), or perhaps due to the lessons learned during the Waymo period, Zhu Jiajun and Dave chose a very differentiated product route after starting their business - unmanned logistics delivery.
Take their star product, the third - generation unmanned freight vehicle "Nuro", which has the same name as the company, as an example. In terms of appearance, Nuro is a van with a camera on top. It has a payload capacity of 500 pounds (about 400 catties), a maximum speed of 45 miles per hour (about 70 kilometers per hour), and its internal compartments can maintain a constant temperature between - 40°C and 20°C. The on - board computer can adapt to the external environment at any time to control energy consumption. Also, for safety reasons, Nuro is equipped with an external airbag to ensure the safety of pedestrians.
(External airbag. Source: Nuro official website)
Everything seems perfect, and the market scenario is also very realistic. However, the problem is that building a car has costs, and Zhu Jiajun and Dave are idealists.
The combination of these two factors determined Nuro's initial development route: not only to develop autonomous - driving software on their own but also to build cars on their own. When they released their first product, the R1, in January 2018, some media wrote: "Nuro has taken a different path in the field of autonomous driving. Instead of installing an autonomous - driving plugin on a Ford Focus, it has built a brand - new car from scratch... Although at first glance, it looks like a toaster on wheels."
A considerable part of Nuro's early - stage financing was also invested in "car - building". For example, in 2020, Nuro acquired Ike, a developer of autonomous trucks, in a full - acquisition deal. Ike's valuation at that time was $250 million. Among all the autonomous - truck companies, their advantage lies in truck - system solutions, motion planning, and simulation. In August 2021, they also announced that they would invest $40 million to build an automobile production line and a testing ground for autonomous - driving performance in Nevada, the United States.
As for the result, it can only be said that "battle reports can lie, but the front - line situation won't". When Nuro officially started road testing, they honestly chose the Toyota Prius as the vehicle.
On the other hand, not only does building a car have costs, but using a car also has costs. It is quite difficult to convince customers to abandon the traditional logistics thinking of "manual labor" and switch to the "surrealistic" logistics tool they provide. Specifically in terms of business, although they have reached cooperation agreements with well - known retail chains in the United States such as Kroger, well - known pizza brands like Domino's, and well - known convenience stores like 7 - Eleven, most of these cooperations are regional or even street - level.
Under the influence of several factors, Nuro has actually never found a stable profit model. Finally, in November 2022 and May 2023, Nuro laid off 300 and 340 employees respectively. While trying to survive by making tough decisions, it temporarily suspended its original product - development plan and changed its entire strategic direction, gradually shifting from pursuing the production of complete vehicles to a technology - licensing model focused on pure R & D.
In other words, compared with when it was first established in 2016, Nuro is now a brand - new company on a second - stage entrepreneurship journey. This also explains why in this round of financing, Nuro's valuation dropped from $8.6 billion in 2021 to $6 billion, as the basis for valuation has completely changed.
The new investors introduced in this round also reflect the strategic - direction adjustment to some extent. Nuro's Series E financing was carried out in two phases. The first phase was completed in April this year, and the main investors were mainly financial investors, including T. Rowe Price Group, Fidelity Investments, Tiger Global Management, and Greylock, with a scale of $106 million. In the second phase not long ago, the investors they introduced were mainly industrial capital, including Nvidia, Uber, Kindred Ventures (an early investor in Uber), and Baillie Gifford (a well - known "ultra - long - term investor" in Horizon Robotics).
According to reports, the cooperation between Nvidia and Nuro is based on their long - standing in - depth cooperation. Currently, Nuro uses Nvidia's GPUs on a large scale for data processing and model training, and its latest computing model is also built on the Nvidia Drive AGX Thor platform. The reason why Uber chose Nuro is that it has invested in an autonomous - vehicle manufacturer, Lucid, and plans to produce at least 20,000 Gravity SUVs for operation within six years. Nuro provides an important "brain" for this vehicle. Dave said that the cooperation negotiation between the two parties lasted for a whole year. "Currently, the engineers from Lucid and Nuro have made substantial progress."
Of course, no one knows exactly what the "substantial" progress means. According to Uber's plan, the Gravity SUV will not be officially launched into the market until after 2026. Even Dave himself admitted that Uber "contacted almost all software developers in the market" before finalizing the cooperation, which seems a bit like a playboy spreading his net everywhere. Considering the current industrial manufacturing capacity in the United States and its long -