Suzhou is about to see another star IPO hit the market.

Four years after its establishment, Lingyi Automobile recently set its sights on the Hong Kong stock market.

Under the leadership of Huang Zehua, a member of the post - 90s generation, this star dark horse in the heavy - truck field has sold over 2,200 new - energy intelligent heavy trucks and is determined to become the "Tesla of the heavy - truck industry".

Along the way, many investors have gathered behind them.

In addition to Puquan Capital, the only industrial investment platform under CATL, this star unicorn has also received support from Temasek, Yifeng Capital, Danming Capital, Lenovo Capital & Incubator Group, Momenta, Yuanhe Holdings, Yuanjing Capital, Huoshui Capital, Chentao Capital, Xinghang Venture Capital, NIO Capital, Joy Capital, Blue Lake Capital, Sanhua Holdings, Zijin Mining, Yankuang Capital, Moutai Fund, Yuanhe Puhua, Zhaoxi Capital, etc.

A Post - 90s Leader, a Star Heavy Truck Emerges in Suzhou

After taking the company he co - founded public, Huang Zehua turned around and launched his fourth entrepreneurial venture.

Back in 2021, with the successful listing of TuSimple in the United States, Huang Zehua, as a co - founder of the company, achieved both fame and fortune. Surprisingly, just six months after the company's listing, he resolutely chose to embark on the entrepreneurial journey again.

Behind this choice lies Huang Zehua's childhood dream. Since he loved science fiction from a young age, this post - 90s individual has always wanted to participate in founding the world's greatest robot company. After graduating from Beihang University, he obtained a master's degree in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University in the United States.

In his mind, the most perfect robot image is "Optimus Prime" from "Transformers". So, after graduating with a master's degree, Huang Zehua participated in founding TuSimple in the United States and started working on heavy - truck autonomous driving. "An unmanned heavy truck is actually a robot."

During the process of fully responsible for the R & D and productization of TuSimple's autonomous driving system's software and hardware, he found that heavy - truck autonomous driving not only needs to solve "software" problems but also "hardware" problems such as the vehicle itself, and also faces challenges such as a commercial closed - loop. At that time, Huang Zehua believed that building cars was an inevitable choice.

"We tried building cars in the United States, but there was no corresponding industrial chain foundation there." Huang Zehua once revealed in an interview that China, with its complete and powerful new - energy vehicle industrial chain, is an excellent place to build cars. Eventually, he came up with the idea of returning to China to build cars from scratch and prepared to start a new business.

During the research on the domestic relevant industries, Huang Zehua met Zhang Hongsong, who has rich experience in the heavy - truck field. In addition to having worked at Dongfeng Motor, Zhang Hongsong also presided over the R & D of multiple generations of heavy - truck products at Foton Daimler and served as the general manager of Sany Heavy Trucks.

After in - depth communication, the two decided to establish Lingyi Automobile in June 2022 and finally settled the company in Taicang, Suzhou. As a well - known hometown of German enterprises, Taicang, Suzhou has formed a characteristic layout of "a single road gathering an entire industrial chain" and can provide 70% of the components for a car.

In order to build Lingyi Automobile into the world's best transportation robot company, after discussing almost all vehicle models and technological directions, they decided to first focus on medium - and short - haul new - energy heavy trucks with a daily driving distance of 500 kilometers, and then gradually expand the products to medium - and long - haul routes, and finally achieve unmanned heavy - truck driving.

Digging deeper into the reasons, in addition to the judgment that the market demand for medium - and short - haul transportation will increase, Lingyi Automobile, which is determined to become the "Tesla of the heavy - truck industry", firmly believes that electrification and intelligence will bring subversive and fundamental changes to the heavy - truck industry and hopes to be the promoter and implementer of such changes.

Over 2,200 Heavy Trucks Support an IPO

At the beginning, Lingyi Automobile chose to focus on car - building.

At that time, in Huang Zehua's view, whether it was the electronic and electrical architecture, control logic, or manufacturing consistency and safety, heavy trucks far fell short of the high standards required for unmanned driving. "Talking about unmanned driving without considering the whole vehicle is almost a dead end for heavy trucks."

Facing the outdated vehicle architecture, the company began to positively design new - energy intelligent heavy trucks specifically for autonomous highway freight. While focusing on the vehicle platform and key systems, it also paid special attention to hardware architectures such as the power system and thermal management system.

Originally, Lingyi Automobile planned to build the cars first and then consider installing intelligent driving systems. However, the emergence of ChatGPT disrupted their plan. Realizing that the paradigm of autonomous driving technology had undergone a fundamental change, the company designed an end - to - end multi - modal large language model for heavy - truck autonomous driving in 2022.

After that, Huang Zehua focused on software and intelligence, while Zhang Hongsong was in charge of vehicle R & D and other related hardware. In less than two years, the company completed the R & D, manufacturing, and delivery of two models on the first platform with only about 150 million yuan, becoming a star dark horse in the heavy - truck field.

So we can see that in addition to launching the industry's first end - to - end multi - modal large language model for autonomous heavy trucks, Lingyi Automobile also released and commercialized two new - energy intelligent heavy trucks, "Jingzhe" and "Xiaoman", in 2024. The products were mass - produced and 272 units were delivered in the same year.

According to the company's introduction, "Jingzhe", priced between 530,000 and 680,000 yuan, is mainly used for medium - and short - haul and heavy - load transportation of bulk resources such as coal, concrete, and steel. As for "Xiaoman", priced between 430,000 and 600,000 yuan, it is specially tailored for short - haul transportation and regional logistics networks.

Even though they initially faced the problem of insufficient brand awareness, with the help of partners such as United Heavy Trucks, Hubei Sanhuan, and Shenhe Automobile, Lingyi Automobile delivered 1,176 new - energy intelligent heavy trucks in 2025, becoming the world's fastest - growing emerging new - energy heavy - truck enterprise to achieve an annual sales volume of over 1,000 units. In 2026, they sold 778 new - energy intelligent heavy trucks in just four months.

This has also led to a continuous improvement in their performance. Looking at the prospectus, the company's revenue increased from 1.163 million yuan in 2023 to 124 million yuan in 2024 and soared to 522 million yuan in 2025. Although affected by factors such as R & D, Lingyi Automobile accumulated a loss of over 600 million yuan in the same three - year period, but the gross loss rate has narrowed to 2.5% in 2025.

More importantly, as more and more heavy trucks are sold, the company is obtaining more and more real - vehicle data. This means that they can continuously train the autonomous driving algorithm and further improve the vehicle through a large amount of real - vehicle data, which not only lays a solid foundation for the mass production of intelligent driving but also better meets the actual needs of a wide range of heavy - truck transportation scenarios.

According to Huang Zehua's plan, Lingyi Automobile will take three steps: the first step is to build cars, consolidate the hardware and system foundation, and solve vehicle architecture and safety problems; the second step is to achieve L4 or L4+ - level unmanned driving in specific scenarios; the third step is to promote the full evolution of the system to L5 within the next five years, enabling heavy trucks to achieve real autonomous driving in various complex environments.

CATL Invests in a Star Unicorn

Looking back at Lingyi Automobile's development process, their success is also inseparable from the support of many investors.

Before founding the company, Huang Zehua, with the help of angel investor Chentao Capital, visited many supply - chain enterprises and automobile manufacturers in the industry. This not only refreshed his inherent understanding of the industry but also led to the conclusion that building new - energy intelligent heavy trucks was feasible.

Not long after officially starting the entrepreneurial journey, the company received a sole investment of 60 million yuan from Chentao Capital. After completing the preliminary core technology roadmap and assembling the core team, they received 67 million yuan from Tianshan Capital, Xinyi Capital, etc. in March 2023.

Three months later, Lingyi Automobile made progress in R & D and business. Due to their optimism about intelligent electric heavy trucks and high - speed trunk logistics, as well as their recognition of the team with senior car - building and autonomous driving experience, Lenovo Capital & Incubator Group directly invested 73.4 million yuan in the company.

These precious funds not only shortened the mass - production time of their first batch of vehicle models but also accelerated Lingyi Automobile's R & D of the end - to - end multi - modal large language model for autonomous driving. As the company achieved breakthroughs in development, it quickly attracted the attention of many investors.

In 2024, Lingyi Automobile completed three rounds of financing in a row. The investors included Momenta, Chentao Capital, Tianshan Capital, Taicang Guofa Wenxin, Yuanhe Holdings, Boruid Investment, Chengpu Investment, etc.

In the view of Cao Xudong, the founder of Momenta, who has known Huang Zehua for many years, the latter has both a sharp foresight for advanced technologies and a full sense of awe for science and technology. "Momenta has done extremely well in the field of passenger - car intelligence." According to Huang Zehua, Momenta hopes to jointly explore the truck business by investing in Lingyi Automobile.

Starting from March 2025, Lingyi Automobile completed two rounds of financing in about three months. In this process, in addition to Momenta, the investors also included Caitong Capital, Yuanjing Capital, Huoshui Capital, Chentao Capital, Xinghang Venture Capital, etc.

As time passed, Puquan Capital under CATL decided to make an investment and became a shareholder of Lingyi Automobile in February 2026. Meanwhile, Momenta, NIO Capital, Fangguang Capital, Joy Capital, Shenneng Chengyi, Blue Lake Capital, Huoshui Capital, etc. also invested in the company.

"We are optimistic that Lingyi Automobile can seize the trend of the rapid increase in the penetration rate of electric heavy trucks. Through large - scale product deployment, it can simultaneously build an economic flywheel and a data flywheel in real - world logistics scenarios, promote the transformation of heavy trucks from electrification to intelligence, continuously expand the boundaries of physical intelligence, and move towards the ultimate transportation robot." As one of the leading investors, Li Yao, a partner of NIO Capital, explained the reason for the investment.

Not long after, with the support of Yifeng Capital, Temasek, Danming Capital, Gaocheng Capital, Huoshui Capital, Anhui Lingtong, Yuzun Fund, Sanhua Holdings, Changshi Capital, Zijin Mining, Yankuang Capital, Moutai Fund, Yuanhe Puhua, Zhaoxi Capital, etc., Lingyi Automobile completed the B2 - round financing, and its valuation exceeded 7 billion yuan, making it a unicorn overnight.

Before the listing, Puquan Capital under CATL holds 11.51% of the shares, making it the largest external shareholder of Lingyi Automobile. As Lingyi Automobile aims for the Hong Kong stock market, it means that CATL will also gain a star IPO.

Reference Materials:

1. "Dialogue | Huang Zehua of Lingyi Automobile: A Realistic Entrepreneurship of a Science - Fiction Fan, Becoming the 'Tesla' of the Heavy - Truck Industry", Blue Whale Finance

2. "Dialogue with Huang Zehua, CEO of Lingyi Automobile: Selling Over 1,000 Heavy Trucks per Month Next Year, Promoting L5 - Level Unmanned Driving within Five Years", Lei Feng Network

This article is from the WeChat official account "Dongshisi Tiao Capital" (ID: DsstCapital), written by Lu Zhigao and edited by Wang Qingwu, and is published by 36Kr with authorization.