Li Auto makes an exception to invest in an embodied startup founded by the key contributor to the L9, and Alibaba's CEO also joins in.

Two "Li Auto - affiliated" senior executives have entered the embodied intelligence track.

One of them was the Chief AI Scientist of Li Auto before leaving the company. He was also the key figure in charge of the R & D of Li Auto's intelligent cockpit and the Li Auto AI glasses Livis.

The other is the person who dared to argue with Li Xiang face - to - face and the initiator of Li Auto's "refrigerator, color TV, big sofa" strategy.

The new company jointly founded by the two has been established for about two months and has already received its first - round financing. Of course, it's no longer news that Li Auto - affiliated talents are flocking to the embodied intelligence field and gaining the favor of capital.

However, what's different this time is that in the shareholder list of this company, not only Meta Vision Capital, founded by the CEO of Alibaba, an important early - stage shareholder of Li Auto, but also Li Auto itself appears.

That is to say, in the entrepreneurial cases of Li Auto employees, the first embodied intelligence robot project directly invested by Li Auto has been born.

Former "Li Auto - affiliated" senior executives venture into embodied intelligence

This new embodied intelligence company is called Xieyue Intelligence and was established in late January this year.

Public information shows that the business of Xieyue Intelligence will focus on consumer - grade embodied intelligence products for the home scenario in the C - end market.

According to multiple sources, within two months, the company has assembled a team of nearly 20 people and is currently recruiting core team members and relevant technical talents from the society. It has offices in Hangzhou, Beijing, and Shenzhen.

As of now, Xieyue Intelligence has completed its first - round financing, jointly invested by Meta Vision Capital and Li Auto.

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When there are numerous embodied intelligence companies and a large amount of hot money is rushing into the industry, "people" are the primary factor for the capital market when evaluating start - up companies.

The reason why Xieyue Intelligence has attracted external attention is also closely related to the backgrounds of its two founders - both of them come from Li Auto, a company we are quite familiar with.

Among the start - up companies founded by former employees, this is the first embodied intelligence robot project invested by Li Auto and the second project of former employees directly invested by Li Auto (the first one is Nanshe Technology, a smart home company founded by Shen Yanan, the former co - founder and president of Li Auto).

What's special about Xieyue Intelligence?

Who is Chen Wei? Who is Zhang Xiao?

The two founders of Xieyue Intelligence were both key figures within Li Auto before leaving the company.

Chen Wei, the current chairman and CTO of Xieyue Intelligence, was once the Chief AI Scientist and the person in charge of the base model at Li Auto. He was known as "Uncle Wei" within Li Auto.

In 2021, Chen Wei joined Li Auto. A few months before his arrival, Li Xiang had made it clear that all algorithms related to the intelligent space and AI should be developed in - house, and the previous situation of relying on suppliers for underlying algorithms must be changed - Chen Wei was the one who made this happen.

After that, he led the in - house development of Li Auto's intelligent cockpit and the R & D of the MindGPT large - scale model. It was also under his promotion that Li Auto became the first car company to integrate a self - developed large - language model into its vehicles.

In February last year, Chen Wei was transferred from the spatial AI department to the newly established base model department to lead the independent R & D of the base model. During this period, he was also mainly responsible for the R & D of Li Auto's AI glasses Livis.

It can be said that Chen Wei is well - known in the field of multi - modal cognitive large - scale models in the automotive industry. In fact, he had accumulated a lot of experience in this field before joining Li Auto.

Chen Wei graduated from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications for his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. His main research areas are pattern recognition and signal processing in artificial intelligence, including speech technology, natural language processing, and document image analysis.

In 2011, after graduating with a doctorate in signal and information processing from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chen Wei joined Sogou. He successively held positions such as the general manager of the AI interaction technology department and the chief scientist of the AI interaction business unit until he joined Li Auto nine years later.

In January this year, it was reported that Chen Wei had left Li Auto. Zhan Kun, a senior algorithm expert in autonomous driving, would take over the R & D of LLM and VLA.

This timeline almost coincides with the establishment of Xieyue Intelligence.

Zhang Xiao, the other founder and current CEO of Xieyue Intelligence, was an early employee who joined Li Auto in 2016. Before that, he had worked in BMW MINI, engaged in vehicle product planning, development management, and other work.

Within Li Auto, Zhang Xiao was a key figure in the product strategies of multiple vehicle models and was deeply involved in the product definition of models such as the Li ONE and L9.

It can be said that Zhang Xiao was the initiator of the current "refrigerator, color TV, big sofa" strategy that has swept the automotive industry.

Moreover, it is said that he is the person who "dared to bang the table in front of Li Xiang".

The popular L7 model of Li Auto was successfully launched after Zhang Xiao argued with Li Xiang. There is even a saying that Zhang Xiao was the person within Li Auto who opposed Li Xiang most strongly.

Li Xiang himself has publicly admitted that "Tang Jing, Zhang Xiao, and Li Xinyang always won the arguments with me in history."

Before leaving the company, this person who dared to argue with Li Xiang was the President of the Second Product Line of Li Auto.

At that time, Li Auto's product lines were divided into three according to the price range, and the three people mentioned by Li Xiang were the heads of the three product lines:

The First Product Line: Models priced above 400,000 yuan, including the MEGA and L9, was in charge of Tang Jing;

The Second Product Line: Models priced between 300,000 and 400,000 yuan, including the L8, L7, and i8, was in charge of Zhang Xiao;

The Third Product Line: Models priced below 300,000 yuan, including the L6 and i6, was in charge of Li Xinyang.

In December last year, it was reported that Zhang Xiao was about to leave the company, and then Li Auto adjusted its product lines:

The First Product Line was still in charge of Tang Jing, covering models such as the MEGA, L9, L8, and L7; the Second Product Line was led by Li Xinyang, including the L6 and i - series models.

There are different speculations about the reason for Zhang Xiao's departure. Some think it was because of the poor sales performance of the i8 at that time, while others believe that Zhang Xiao had set his sights on the embodied intelligence track.

The real reason remains unknown. But from the result, Zhang Xiao must have planned to start a business in embodied intelligence at that time.

The details of Chen Wei and Zhang Xiao's joint venture are quite interesting.

Perhaps because they are both alumni of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and hometown fellows from Inner Mongolia, and they also share the same expectation for embodied intelligence -

They hit it off immediately.

So, in the surging embodied intelligence industry, a new "Li Auto - affiliated" name has emerged.

How many "Li Auto - affiliated" people have flocked to the embodied intelligence field?

Since 2024, there has been a startup boom in the embodied intelligence track, which the outside world has already noticed.

This boom has swept across various industries, including Li Auto in the intelligent vehicle field. Therefore, we have seen that many "Li Auto - affiliated" senior executives have left the company and soon after, there have been new developments in their entry into the embodied intelligence field.

According to incomplete statistics, as of now, at least 8 senior executives from Li Auto have entered the embodied intelligence field and have clearly defined their next steps. Besides Chen Wei and Zhang Xiao:

Zhao Zhelun, the former director of intelligent driving product at Li Auto, joined the team of Yu Yinan, the person - in - charge of Horizon Robotics' intelligent driving in late 2024. Now he is a co - founder of Vitapower.

Wang Kai, the former CTO of Li Auto, and Jia Peng and Wang Jiajia, two of the "Three Pillars" of Li Auto's intelligent driving, founded ZhiJian Dynamics in Hangzhou last July. It has just completed 5 rounds of financing and has become a unicorn in the embodied intelligence field.

Xia Zhongpu, another member of the "Three Pillars" and the person in charge of Li Auto's end - to - end intelligent driving technology, has also been reported to have new moves recently. He has joined Wujie Dynamics, founded by Zhang Yufeng, the vice - president of Horizon Robotics, as a co - founder and co - CTO.

Lang Xianpeng, the former senior vice - president and the person - in - charge of Li Auto's intelligent driving who just left the company, recently founded Kunlunxing. The company received three rounds of financing just 10 days after its registration and quickly joined the unicorn ranks.

Besides these 8 people, it is rumored that Han Ling, the former head of intelligent driving product at Li Auto, and Qin Dong, the former head of the chip department's SoC at Li Auto, who left the company recently, have also entered projects related to embodied intelligence, but the specific companies have not been fully disclosed.

The common reasons for these core backbones within Li Auto to choose to enter the embodied intelligence field can be summarized in two aspects:

On the one hand, it is due to the industry. The embodied intelligence track has entered an explosive period. Especially in 2026, it is regarded by the industry as the first year of large - scale delivery of humanoid robots.

Against this background, capital has been pouring in crazily. In 2025, there were more than 300 financing events in the embodied intelligence track, with a total financing amount of over 40 billion yuan. There has been a large amount of hot money, and this year, the financial activities have been even more extensive and the transactions have been more frequent.

On the other hand, embodied intelligence can attract many "Li Auto" senior executives because of the advantages in strategy, organization, and products that these people have accumulated within Li Auto.

They have accumulated the closed - loop ability of "perception - decision - execution" in the fields of intelligent driving, AI large - scale models, and hardware R & D - which is highly consistent with the technical requirements of embodied intelligence and can be directly transferred to the robot field.

This is actually the reason why Li Auto is evolving into an embodied intelligence company.

Li Xiang has clearly stated in an all - staff meeting that 2026 is a crucial year for the company to evolve into an embodied intelligence enterprise.

In his opinion, there are no more than 3 companies in the world that can simultaneously layout base models, chips, operating systems, and embodied intelligence, and Li Auto must be one of them.

To this end, Li Auto has made arrangements in multiple dimensions, including but not limited to:

Li Auto's annual R & D expenditure exceeds 10 billion yuan, of which 50% is invested in AI - related R & D; the R & D system has been reorganized into three major teams: base model, software body, and hardware body...

At the same time, Li Auto has also posted a