Peak dialogue between JIN Tao of Gaohu Capital and ZHAO You of Neolix: Behind China's largest private equity financing in autonomous driving | The King of Business Conference WISE2025
Zhao You, CEO of Neolix, and Jin Tao, Partner of Gaohu Capital
From November 27th to 28th, the 36Kr WISE 2025 Business King Conference, hailed as the "annual technology and business trendsetter," was held at the Conduction Space in the 798 Art District in Beijing.
This year's WISE is no longer a traditional industry summit but an immersive experience in the form of a "tech thriller short drama." From AI reshaping the boundaries of hardware to embodied intelligence opening the door to the real world; from brand globalization in the wave of going overseas to traditional industries equipping with "cyber prosthetics" - what we restore is not only the trends but also the insights honed through numerous business practices.
In the following content, we will dissect the real logic behind these "thriller dramas" frame by frame and witness the unique "scenery" of the 2025 business world.
Neolix announced at the end of October this year that it had completed over $600 million in Series D financing, led by Stone Venture from the UAE, with a powerful joint lead - investment from Gaocheng Investment, China Mobile, Xinchen Capital, CDH VGC, Zhaoxi Capital, Beijing AI Fund, and large - scale Internet companies. Other important investors in this round also include Legend Capital, Gaorong Venture Capital, Shanshui Capital, Hengxu Capital, Yizhuang Science and Technology Innovation, Huatai Fund, etc. Old shareholders such as Yunqi Capital also continued to increase their investment. Gaohu Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for this round of financing. This deal not only broke the private financing record in China's unmanned driving field but also became one of the largest private equity financings in China in 2025, regarded as an important signal for the industry to enter the accelerated commercialization phase.
This year's 36Kr WISE Business King Conference deeply focused on core tracks such as AI and going overseas, and conducted a comprehensive insight into the integration of business and technology in 2025. In the peak dialogue on the morning of the first day, Jin Tao, a partner of Gaohu Capital, and Zhao You, the CEO of Neolix, had an in - depth exchange around "Behind China's largest private financing in autonomous driving."
The following is the dialogue between Zhao You, CEO of Neolix, and Jin Tao, Partner of Gaohu Capital, edited by 36Kr:
Jin Tao: Thanks to 36Kr and all partners. I'm Jin Tao from Gaohu Capital. Gaohu Capital started with investments in 2015 and transformed into a financial advisor (FA) in 2017. In 2025, we completed financing services worth billions of dollars in fields such as artificial intelligence, embodied intelligence, and internationalization, including star enterprises like MiniMax, Hillbot, Qianxun Intelligence, Vita Power, Jike, and VITURE. Among them, the cooperation with Neolix was the largest deal this year - together with Neolix, we have completed a total of $750 million in financing, and the recent Series D financing alone exceeded $600 million. This is the largest single - deal financing in China's autonomous driving field to date and also the largest financing in China's private equity field this year. Our cooperation with Neolix began in 2020, and we have gone through the industry's winter together and reached the current explosive period. Today, I'm very honored to share the story behind this year's largest private financing with Zhao You, the CEO of Neolix.
Zhao You: Thank you all! Neolix was founded in 2018 and is an early entrant in China's autonomous driving field. As Jin Tao mentioned, the unmanned delivery industry where Neolix is located experienced a trough in the previous few years and started to show its strength this year. Neolix and the entire unmanned delivery industry have entered a period of rapid development. Now, Neolix has grown into the company with the largest fleet size in the autonomous driving industry, with over 13,000 vehicles. Since its establishment, Neolix has focused on the unmanned delivery or unmanned commercial vehicle track - different from the more familiar unmanned taxis that people have the opportunity to take, Neolix targets the To B market, using technology to empower urban logistics infrastructure, especially the urban delivery industry, and providing transportation services with unmanned vehicles.
Currently, in addition to having the world's largest L4 - level unmanned fleet, Neolix has also achieved several good results: First, it cooperated with Qingdao to build the world's first autonomous driving city. Neolix deployed about 1,200 unmanned vehicles in Qingdao, about 50% more than the 800 - vehicle fleet of the American autonomous driving company Waymo in San Francisco. Second, in September this year, Neolix took the lead in exceeding the scale of 10,000 vehicles, which was a milestone for Neolix and also of great significance to the entire autonomous driving industry: there is now the first enterprise in the industry that has crossed the threshold of large - scale commercialization. Currently, Neolix's monthly delivery volume of unmanned vehicles exceeds 2,000, far leading among global autonomous driving enterprises. Neolix's delivery volume in 2025 will exceed 15,000, and the goal for next year is 40,000 - 50,000 vehicles.
Jin Tao: We reviewed the development trend of the unmanned delivery industry last year. It felt that until September and October 2024, the entire industry was still quite quiet. However, from the end of last year to this year, the unmanned delivery industry suddenly achieved explosive development. How did this change happen?
Zhao You: This explosion is actually the result of long - term accumulation, which has shown signs in the past one or two years and is fundamentally supported by four dimensions. First is policy support. The domestic policy support for unmanned delivery has exceeded our expectations. From the "Action Plan for Effectively Reducing the Logistics Costs of the Whole Society" issued in 2024 to the recently issued "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Cultivation and Opening of Scenarios to Promote the Large - scale Application of New Scenarios," both clearly propose to support the innovation and promotion of unmanned vehicles and unmanned delivery, which has pointed out the direction for the development of the unmanned delivery industry. So we can see that this year, many domestic cities have started to open road rights for intelligent connected autonomous vehicles, which has played a very important role in promoting the autonomous driving industry, especially the unmanned delivery industry.
Second is the continuous optimization of autonomous driving technology. In 2021, Neolix became one of the first autonomous driving companies approved for on - road testing. As the number of unmanned delivery vehicles for autonomous driving increased, we accumulated very valuable data, which enabled us to quickly iterate algorithms. Many new autonomous driving technologies became stable and mature during the testing process, from the Transformer architecture to BEV (bird's - eye view) and then to OCC (occupancy network), and now to end - to - end. Generally speaking, the safety and stability of autonomous driving have exceeded that of human - driven vehicles, and public acceptance has also increased significantly.
Third is the advantage of the domestic supply chain. With the development of relevant domestic industries, the costs of core components such as chips, lidars, batteries, and sensors have decreased significantly, which has greatly reduced the hardware cost of unmanned delivery vehicles and provided the conditions for large - scale application.
Finally, the support of capital is also very important. Thanks to the help of Gaohu Capital, which has served as Neolix's long - term financial advisor, the development of the unmanned delivery industry requires financial support. Capital can help the company develop faster and accelerate the iteration of technology and hardware. More importantly, as a startup company, and with unmanned delivery vehicles being an innovative product, the support of capital can enhance customers' confidence, believing that Neolix has the ability to provide long - term and stable services, which is helpful for promoting the application of unmanned delivery vehicles.
Jin Tao: Neolix set the goal of "producing 10,000 vehicles annually" in the first half of this year and achieved it ahead of schedule in September. What factors exceeded expectations? Will this change our expectations for the growth trend in the next few years?
Zhao You: There are indeed several factors that exceeded expectations. First is the intensity of policy liberalization, which has been mentioned before.
Second is the acceptance speed of B - end customers - originally, we expected that the B - end market would react more slowly to new technologies than the C - end market, but this year, a large number of customers actively embraced unmanned delivery, which also exceeded our expectations. After communicating with customers, we found that there is a large labor shortage in the urban delivery field, and the shortage of freight drivers in China may even exceed tens of millions. The main reason is that young people are reluctant to do this job. Nearly 90% of freight drivers are over 35 years old. The shortage of manpower is the biggest pain point for many customers and the biggest motivation for them to try unmanned delivery.
When people hear about unmanned vehicles, unmanned delivery, and the embodied intelligence industry, many people's first reaction is whether it will replace some people's jobs. However, the actual situation is that these new products and new models first fill the gaps in positions that humans are "unwilling or unable to do". Judging from the current trend, the job of freight drivers is likely to be one of them. This year, a large number of shippers actively tried unmanned delivery. Although they had a lot to change and adjust, the speed exceeded our expectations.
Third is the breakthrough in scenarios. When many investors mention unmanned delivery, the first thing that comes to mind is the express delivery scenario. We initially entered the market through the express delivery scenario because the labor shortage in the express delivery industry is more obvious. However, in fact, the express delivery industry mainly serves e - commerce, which accounts for less than 20% of our entire commodity circulation. There is still a large amount of goods circulated offline and do not go through the express delivery channel. In addition to maintaining stable growth in the express delivery scenario this year, Neolix has also invested a lot of resources in expanding the offline market. More and more offline logistics companies and customers have started to use unmanned delivery, which has provided key support for us to achieve the goal of 10,000 vehicles ahead of schedule.
Regarding future growth, there is also a potential point this year. More and more overseas markets are interested in China's unmanned delivery solutions, which is an interesting new phenomenon. In the autonomous driving industry, the two most advanced countries are definitely China and the United States. In the unmanned delivery industry, especially because it highly depends on the cost advantage of the supply chain, China has a significant lead. More and more overseas institutions and customers have actively contacted us in China to discuss cooperation possibilities. We have obtained road rights in several countries this year, which will bring more orders to Neolix. We expect that overseas sales will increase significantly next year.
Jin Tao: Looking ahead to the next 2 - 5 years, what are Neolix's plans for business expansion?
Zhao You: Unmanned delivery first explored business scenarios in the express delivery industry and took the first step towards large - scale commercialization. If you are familiar with the domestic express delivery industry, the top eight companies may account for more than 95% of the entire express delivery market. Relying solely on these eight customers cannot support the long - term development of a To B enterprise. Therefore, covering the pan - urban delivery market both online and offline is the "life - and - death line" for our entire industry.
The offline logistics scenario is more non - standard. How to provide accurate and stable services for it is our core challenge and also an opportunity. Our goal is clear: in 2026, we aim to achieve a 50 - 50 split between the offline pan - urban delivery market and the express delivery market; in 2027, we aim to increase the proportion of offline urban delivery business to 60% - 70%. Doing a good job in offline scenario services is crucial for Neolix and the entire unmanned delivery industry.
Jin Tao: Neolix's founder, Mr. Yu, said that after completing the $600 million Series D financing, they only celebrated for one and a half hours, and the team generally felt a lot of pressure. What are the current biggest sources of pressure?
Zhao You: It's true that we only celebrated for one and a half hours, precisely from around 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. The pressure has always been there. The apparent pressure comes from market competition - the warming up of the industry will inevitably attract more participants, which is a good thing for the industry and forces us to continuously optimize our technology and services. However, the greater pressure comes from social responsibility.
Urban logistics and delivery are related to everyone's life and are important urban infrastructure. Neolix hopes to build unmanned delivery vehicles into an "army of ants" in the urban logistics and delivery field: using unmanned vehicles to efficiently complete urban logistics and delivery while minimizing the impact on urban traffic. People may not even notice the existence of unmanned vehicles, which places extremely high requirements on technology and operation.
As a leading company in the L4 - level autonomous driving track in terms of scale, Neolix's unmanned fleet has exceeded 13,000 vehicles. There is no precedent in the world on how to match technology with scale. Neolix adheres to the vision - based solution, using camera perception and large - model algorithms to dispatch an unmanned fleet of over 10,000 vehicles. No one can teach us in this regard, and we can only explore on our own.
More importantly, unmanned delivery vehicles are on the road and participate in the urban traffic system. We have the responsibility to make traffic better and safer and to improve the efficiency of urban logistics and delivery, creating social value. For example, during the typhoon season in Guangdong Province some time ago, the traffic in many cities was shut down to ensure safety. At this time, the value of unmanned delivery vehicles was reflected. During the typhoon, they could still operate continuously and deliver essential goods to consumers staying at home for protection.
Jin Tao: Just now, you mentioned competition. Recently, we have seen that not only startups but also many more established companies have entered the unmanned delivery field. What characteristics enable Neolix to stand out in the competition?
Zhao You: More participants have brought more attention to the industry, and more excellent talents have started to flow into this industry. We can clearly feel that the industry is iterating technology and business models at a faster pace, which is of positive significance to the entire industry.
Neolix's core advantages lie in three aspects: First, we have enough respect for both the technology and logistics fields. Neolix recruits top talents from these two fields to promote the in - depth integration of technology and logistics scenarios: when the size of the unmanned fleet exceeds 10,000, technology is only a part of the product, and the product is only a part of the service. Only by enabling people in the autonomous driving and logistics fields to cooperate efficiently can we reconstruct the logistics business model.
Second is the forward - looking nature of the technology route. Neolix was the first company in the unmanned delivery industry to adopt the vision - based solution and has always adhered to it. This is why we have achieved one technological breakthrough after another this year: the unmanned delivery industry took the lead in implementing the vision - action large - model on vehicles and was the first to achieve the commercial delivery of the map - less technology solution, providing core support for instant delivery, rapid deployment, and compliance when going overseas.
Third is the control over the supply chain. Neolix built its own factory in the early days of its establishment, deeply binding with the advantages of the Chinese supply chain and precisely capturing the industrial dividends, which is the foundation for large - scale delivery.
Jin Tao: In recent months, Neolix's cash flow and profit have been close to breaking even. Compared with many money - burning peers, Neolix has done an excellent job in spending money and cost control. What are the considerations behind this?
Zhao You: As a To B enterprise, Neolix's core concept is to build a healthy state of "saving money for customers, making money for channels, and developing itself." This economic account is very clear and is also an important reference for our product