Just 10 days after its registration, the company is valued at over $1 billion. A top talent from Li Auto's intelligent driving division has sparked new enthusiasm in venture capital.
A company focusing on embodied intelligence was just registered at the beginning of March. Before March was even over, its valuation had far exceeded one billion US dollars...
No kidding!
This company is Kunlunxing, founded by Lang Xianpeng, the former top person in charge of intelligent driving at Li Auto and Ren Geng, the former vice president of Alibaba.
QbitAI has learned that Kunlunxing has completed three rounds of financing in quick succession, joining the ranks of unicorns and becoming the most sought - after new force in embodied intelligence since the beginning of the year.
Data from Qichacha shows that Beijing Kunlunxing Robot Technology Co., Ltd. was registered on March 16, 2026. Its business scope covers the R & D and sales of intelligent robots, the manufacturing and sales of industrial robots, as well as the full - chain business such as artificial intelligence application software development and intelligent control system integration (perfectly fitting the layout of the embodied intelligence and general robot tracks).
Securing a unicorn position in the month of its registration, Kunlunxing has attracted special attention in the extremely fast - paced and highly competitive embodied intelligence track.
People familiar with the matter told QbitAI that Kunlunxing focuses on the general embodied intelligence track, taking into account both the body and the brain.
In addition, the team has many industry stars joining. Apart from the high popularity of Physical AI itself, the gathering of many talents may also be one of the important reasons for the capital market's recognition of this team.
On the one hand, there are well - known veterans leading the way, and on the other hand, the capital has made early heavy investments. Even though the company has kept a low - key profile and remained silent, it can't stop the market from paying high attention.
So, what kind of experiences do the two core leaders, Lang Xianpeng and Ren Geng, have that make the capital market trust and favor them so much?
Who is Lang Xianpeng?
Since the second half of last year, there has been a trend of top figures in the intelligent driving circle leaving their positions and flocking to the robot track.
The news that Lang Xianpeng left to start his own business and targeted the emerging embodied intelligence track has been circulating in the market since around the Spring Festival this year when he left Li Auto.
Lang Xianpeng is quite well - known in the field of autonomous driving and even the overall intelligent driving of vehicles.
Lang Xianpeng was born in 1980. He graduated with a doctorate from the Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and has accumulated many years of experience in automation and CV fields.
Earlier, he worked at Founder Group and Baidu successively.
During his time at Baidu, Lang Xianpeng served as the T9 chief architect, participated in the R & D of Baidu Maps and core autonomous driving projects, and laid a foundation in the full - stack technologies of autonomous driving perception, decision - making, and control.
In January 2018, Lang Xianpeng joined Li Auto as the director of autonomous driving R & D and was the first employee in Li Auto's autonomous driving department.
In the following years, Lang Xianpeng, who started building the intelligent driving business from scratch, climbed the corporate ladder at Li Auto.
2021 was the first year of Li Auto's self - developed intelligent assisted driving.
In this year, he was promoted to vice president of intelligent driving and led the self - developed high - speed NOA "Weicheng" project. The core members of the team included Jia Peng, Guan Shuwei, Wang Yilun, etc. The team completed the switch from the supplier's solution to the self - developed solution in less than 90 days.
It is generally evaluated by the outside world that the "Weicheng Plan" has become an important foundation for the subsequent development of Li Auto's intelligent driving.
In June 2022, Lang Xianpeng appeared as the vice president of intelligent driving at the Li L9 press conference.
Around 2024 and 2025, he was promoted to senior vice president, fully responsible for Li Auto's autonomous driving business. Around this time, Li Auto's intelligent driving team caught up and leaped into the first echelon of the industry.
From the director of autonomous driving R & D, to the vice president of intelligent driving, and then to the senior vice president of Li Auto, fully in charge of the intelligent driving business, it can be said that Lang Xianpeng was once one of Li Xiang's most relied - upon intelligent driving technology experts.
The situation changed at the beginning of this year.
In January, there was an internal organizational adjustment at Li Auto, and he was transferred to be the person in charge (senior vice president) of the hardware body of Li Auto's humanoid robot.
Within just one month after this happened, Lang Xianpeng left Li Auto.
At that time, the official statement was "personal reasons".
Soon, the capital market got the news:
Lang Xianpeng started his own entrepreneurial journey and became the co - founder and CTO of the new company, Kunlunxing.
Ren Geng, the other core figure of Kunlunxing
Lang Xianpeng's partner is Ren Geng, who once served as the vice president of Alibaba and the president of Alibaba Cloud's China region.
The latter serves as the founder and CEO of Kunlunxing.
Lang Xianpeng has technical capabilities and management experience, while Ren Geng is good at market expansion and commercialization. In this regard, he has more than 20 years of work experience.
In 2005, Ren Geng graduated from the School of Computer Science and Technology of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.
After graduation, his first stop in the workplace was Huawei. He successively served as the deputy general manager of the Thai branch and the general manager of the Myanmar branch.
In 2015, Ren Geng, who had worked at Huawei for ten years, joined Alibaba.
Initially, Ren Geng served as the general manager of Alibaba's B2B cross - border business department, leading the expansion of cross - border business and promoting the implementation of relevant business. Since 2018, Ren Geng has served as the vice president of Alibaba Group and the president of Alibaba Cloud's China region, in charge of the largest domestic business segment of Alibaba Cloud.
During his tenure, Alibaba Cloud's China region reached a market share of up to 42.1% in the domestic cloud service market.
From 2022 to 2023, he served as the chief of staff of Alibaba Cloud, mainly responsible for assisting the chairman in overall business operations and product planning.
However, during this period, there were a series of organizational structure adjustments and changes in business responsibilities within Alibaba Cloud.
Therefore, in 2022, Ren Geng proposed to leave, but was persuaded to stay and continued his tenure.
Generally speaking, once one has the intention to leave, it is difficult to stay in the same position with peace of mind.
Ren Geng is no exception. Finally, Ren Geng officially left Alibaba at the end of 2023.
After leaving Alibaba, Ren Geng joinedENN Group as the president.
This is a large comprehensive enterprise group established in 1989, with clean energy as its core business and covering multiple fields such as health, culture, tourism, and real estate.
After joining ENN Group, he led the layout in the fields of energy large - scale models, digital agents, and embodied intelligence.
But less than a year later, he left in February this year to start his own entrepreneurial journey in embodied intelligence.
Does the capital market "invest in people" first? And then what?
From an industry perspective, the combination of Lang Xianpeng and Ren Geng fills in the most common short - board of current embodied intelligence startup teams.
One has full - stack intelligent driving technology and engineering implementation experience, and the other has commercialization, resource integration, and large - enterprise management experience. Their capabilities are complementary, which indeed meets the core screening criteria of current capital for startup teams.
However, from a rational perspective, this resume halo and capital support do not necessarily guarantee entrepreneurial success.
No matter how remarkable their past achievements were, they are in the past.
The embodied intelligence track is still in the early exploration stage. The technical route is not yet finalized, the difficulty of scenario implementation is unknown, and the commercialization closed - loop has not been established. Even with a top - level team configuration, they still have to face multiple industry challenges such as technology R & D, scenario implementation, market competition, and data barriers.
In the entrepreneurial stories of any track, there are always precedents of top executives from large companies joining hands but ultimately failing in the track.
Under the capital's enthusiastic pursuit, forging ahead bravely always coexists with bubbles and risks.
A new chapter in the story of embodied intelligence startup companies is just beginning.
One More Thing
As for when Lang Xianpeng and Ren Geng met and how they chose each other as entrepreneurial partners, no one in the outside world knows yet.
Previously, the market rumored that Mu Beipeng (the former algorithm director of Meituan's unmanned vehicle) who left to start an embodied intelligence business at the beginning of this year was also in the founding team of Kunlunxing.
However, Mu Beipeng came out to refute the rumor a week ago, saying that although he has joined the embodied intelligence entrepreneurship, he has "never had exchanges on embodied intelligence or a joint entrepreneurial plan" with Lang Xianpeng.
This article is from the WeChat official account "QbitAI", author: Heng Yu. Republished by 36Kr with permission.