Geely is implementing a strategic contraction, and even Li Shufu's son is not an exception.

Yesterday, a surprising piece of news broke in the embodied intelligence startup circle: One Star Robotics, a robotics company actually controlled by Li Xingxing, the son of Li Shufu, the chairman of Geely Automobile, suddenly disbanded on the spot.

Although this company had been established for less than half a year, it was born with a halo: "Founded by the 'prince' of Geely and backed by an automotive giant", "Joined by star AI researchers with strong R & D capabilities", "Rapidly completed hundreds of millions of yuan in seed - round financing". It had no shortage of people, money, and technology, and was highly regarded by the outside world as soon as it was established.

But now, with its sudden disbandment, the employees who hadn't passed the probation period all felt a sense of weightlessness, like "failing halfway through the startup journey". They were also speculating about the exact reason for the company's disbandment.

"One Star isn't laying off employees; it's going to be deregistered at the beginning of November. In fact, there were still many orders coming in during September, and the investors who participated in the investment in August all wanted to increase their investment." Fang Yu, who worked in the technology department of One Star Robotics, told Mirror Image Studio. Although they learned in advance that the company would disband on the spot after the National Day holiday, they still found it hard to understand. After all, in his view, One Star Robotics was making good progress both in technology implementation and commercialization.

For a company in good condition in all aspects to suddenly disband, the problem must be traced back to the strategic source, which is Geely behind it.

On October 16th, along with the news of One Star Robotics' disbandment, Qianli Technology, which Geely placed high hopes on for intelligent driving, officially submitted a listing application to the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. On September 28th, at the brand launch event of Qianli Technology, it was announced that Qianli Technology's new positioning is "AI + cars + robots".

Currently, Qianli Technology is led by 37 - year - old "AI genius" Yin Qi, who graduated from the Yao Class at Tsinghua University, specializes in artificial intelligence, and once founded Megvii Technology, one of the "Four AI Unicorns". After joining Qianli Technology, he led the development of the "Qianli Haohan" intelligent driving system and won the favor of Li Shufu. At the above - mentioned launch event, Li Shufu publicly supported Yin Qi, saying "The future belongs to Yin Qi".

In July this year, in a conversation between Intelligence Vehicle Reference and Li Chuanhai, the top - level technical person at Geely, Li Chuanhai said: "In the future, the world's largest robotics company might be Geely, and the word 'robot' represents many things behind it." Also appearing in the interview was Qianli Technology, which had just announced a new upgrade of its intelligent driving system.

Geely has the ambition to become the "world's largest robotics company", but currently, it seems that Geely has higher hopes for Qianli Technology to achieve this ambition.

According to Future Auto Daily, after the disbandment of One Star Robotics, the technical staff have three options. One is to find their own way out; the second is to start a new business independently with CTO Ding Yan; the third is that Geely - affiliated leaders still have resources and ideas to continue working on robotics and may establish a new company entity. They have already talked to some of the technical staff.

As soon as the news of One Star's disbandment spread, Fang Yu's project team members received many calls from embodied intelligence startups. Whether they start their own businesses or stay, he believes that the technical team of One Star will "scatter like stars in the sky". Now that the news of the disbandment has been finalized, the orders signed in September cannot be delivered. Fang Yu has no other thoughts for now; the most urgent thing is to handle the aftermath of the orders from clients.

Failing Halfway Through the Startup Journey

"It's like you're still fighting on the battlefield, but the drums from the rear are telling you to retreat," Fang Yu described his complex feelings about the disbandment of One Star Robotics.

Even before One Star was registered in May, Fang Yu was invited to join the project team. At the beginning, they only got a place with just a few offices. "It could be said to be bare - walled," Fang Yu remembered. As soon as they moved into the office, everyone set up the most basic desks and robots together.

In Fang Yu's technical team, more than 50% of the members have overseas experience, and there are also many technical experts who jumped from star embodied intelligence companies. In the company, there was a robotic arm near each person's desk. "One Star Robotics was a company surrounded by robotic arms," Fang Yu recalled. In his memory, the technical team at One Star was full of enthusiasm.

However, this high - speed train came to a hasty stop in October, less than half a year after its establishment.

Chen Zhen, who joined One Star as an intern, left the company before September. Currently, Chen Zhen still hasn't received more than 10,000 yuan in salary, but compared with others, his loss is not significant.

However, "Before the official deregistration at the beginning of November, all the unpaid salaries will be paid." Fang Yu is also actively communicating with the company on behalf of the members of his project team. But since the company has been established for less than half a year and the employees haven't passed the probation period, according to the legal N + 1 compensation regulations, "it's highly likely that there won't be any".

Under normal circumstances, One Star Robotics pays salaries on the 15th of each month. The reason why the full - time employees' salaries haven't been paid yet is that the separation process hasn't been completed. Fang Yu said that many business processes at One Star Robotics follow Geely's standardized processes. Since the company is expected to be deregistered around the beginning of November, it will resolve the issues of employee salaries and compensation before then.

"I think it's a great pity," Fang Yu told Mirror Image Studio. His biggest regret was that they didn't really create a Demo case (a sample case) for a vertical scenario implementation at One Star Robotics, which is like a medal for them as technical staff. "If only we had a little more time."

Geely Has the Final Say in One Star's Affairs

After joining One Star Robotics, Fang Yu and his colleagues visited various Geely automobile production workshops and even Geely's logistics facilities. This on - the - ground experience allowed the technical staff to conduct a detailed deconstruction of many vertical scenarios and analyze how to solve practical problems through data collection and Robot learning.

According to reports, in June this year, One Star Robotics poached star researcher Ding Yan from Geely's Shanghai AI Lab to serve as the company's CTO and co - founder. In addition, it also carried out industry - academia - research collaboration with Professor Jiang Yugang's team from Fudan University, Professor Wang Yu's team from Tsinghua University, and the internationally renowned FastUMI data collection team.

With this background, One Star Robotics stands out among many startup embodied intelligence companies. Starting from Geely's vertical industrial scenarios and achieving robot scaling based on data collection without a physical body, three months after its establishment, One Star had completed the commercial closed - loop of data without a physical body and received some orders in September.

"For a startup embodied intelligence company, not burning a lot of money and still being able to get commercial orders means it has developed very fast," Fang Yu believes. Neither the financing nor the commercialization progress is the reason for One Star Robotics' sudden disbandment.

● Equity penetration chart of One Star Robotics (Li Xingxing is the son of Li Shufu, Li Ni is the daughter of Li Shufu, and Pan Yunbin is the current CEO of Geely Semiconductor Company). Source: Tianyancha

As the son of Geely founder Li Shufu, Li Xingxing is the incubator and actual controller of the One Star Robotics project, but for One Star, it's not enough for only Li Xingxing within Geely to be optimistic about it.

"Since its establishment, One Star has never had a CEO. The CTO comes from Geely, and the decision - making power lies with the investors. Everything is decided by Geely," Chen Zhen said.

Based on the information about the two rounds of investors disclosed by One Star Robotics, Mirror Image Studio observed that many of the investors are from the Geely system. In July this year, One Star announced the completion of hundreds of millions of yuan in "friends and family round" financing, and almost all the investors were from the Geely ecosystem. In the hundreds of millions of yuan in seed - round financing officially announced again on September 17th, in addition to market institutions such as BV Baidu Ventures and industrial investors such as Galaxy General, familiar faces from the Geely system such as Caocao Chuxing were still among the investors.

As an enterprise personally incubated by Li Shufu's son, One Star Robotics attracted attention from the very beginning. According to the information Fang Yu got, if One Star Robotics hadn't suddenly disbanded, some investors were very eager to increase their investment.

Even as Li Shufu's son, Li Xingxing has little decisive say in One Star's fate. "Geely's strategic adjustment" might be the main reason for One Star's sudden halt.

Geely's Unified Vision

In 2025, Geely's focus has been on one thing: implementing the strategic integration of "One Geely".

This plan, which started with the "Taizhou Declaration" at the end of last year, has been accelerated this year and is being carried out simultaneously in multiple aspects such as brand, technology, capital, and ecosystem.

In terms of brand, Zeekr was delisted and integrated into Geely to eliminate the barriers between the two brands that were listed in different markets and had independent management teams and marketing systems; Geometry was merged into Galaxy to avoid homogeneous competition; Zeekr and Lynk & Co were integrated and coordinated, with "one aiming high and the other expanding widely", but sharing technology and resources.

In terms of technology, all brands within the Geely Group share the core general platform architecture to enhance economies of scale and reduce costs. For intelligent driving, through the establishment of a joint - venture company with Qianli Technology, the scattered intelligent driving solutions of each brand under its umbrella were integrated into the unified "Qianli Haohan" intelligent driving system, which will be used in all Geely and Zeekr models in the future.

Geely is responsible for the "body", and Qianli is responsible for the "brain". Therefore, robot algorithm and large - model R & D are all included in Qianli Technology's business prospects and are part of the "AI + cars + robots" strategy.

The sudden disbandment of One Star Robotics seems unexpected, but in fact, it is an inevitable move for Geely's strategic contraction and resource integration. This has no direct relation to the development of the industry and cannot be said to be a sudden chill in the embodied intelligence boom.

● The official account of One Star Robotics has been cleared. Image source: Screenshot from Mirror Image Studio

"Don't write off the entire industry just because of one or two stumbles while learning to walk," Chen Zhen believes. Embodied intelligence is still in the process of learning to walk, and One Star can hardly be seen as a sign of the dissipation of the embodied intelligence dividend.

What they can take away is the thinking about vertical scenarios and business applications during their work at One Star.

"The existing large - model training often uses Internet data. Embodied intelligence still needs to move towards real scenarios and real applications. With more real - action data and real - scenario data, the end - to - end era of embodied intelligence will come."

Fang Yu said that if One Star Robotics had continued to exist, this would have been one of their ambitions. Now, although they will scatter far and wide, they will continue to pursue this dream.

(Chen Zhen and Fang Yu in this article are pen names)

This article is from the WeChat official account "Mirror Image Studio", written by Ma Shuye, and is published by 36Kr with authorization.