Behind Neolix's $400 million Series E Financing: 100% Over-subscription, Why Its Valuation Remains Undisclosed?

A year ago, Neolix just closed its Series D financing of over 600 million USD, setting the record for the largest single private equity financing in China's autonomous driving sector at that time. One year later, on October 20, 2026, it secured another 400 million USD in Series E financing, bringing its total fundraising in two years to more than 1 billion USD.

According to Neolix's disclosure, this round of financing is jointly led by Boyu Capital and a national-level fund, with participation from Alibaba AEF NextGen Hong Kong Fund, Temasek Vertex Growth, GAC Capital, CP Robotics, Gaohe Capital and other institutions. Existing shareholders including Leishi Capital, SoftBank Asia, Yizhuang State Investment and Gaorong Capital also joined the follow-on investment, with more than 20 institutions in total.

Up to now, Neolix's total accumulated financing has exceeded 100 billion RMB, ranking first in the unmanned delivery vehicle industry in terms of financing scale. However, there are several thought-provoking details in this Series E financing.

01

The National Major Fund Makes Its First Move in the Unmanned Delivery Track

Neolix's leading position in the unmanned delivery track is obvious to all, but what is more noteworthy is that "a national-level fund" in the lead investor lineup.

According to market sources, this fund is the National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, led and established by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Finance in January 2025. Its previous investment portfolio includes Moonshot AI Kimi, DeepSeek, Galaxy Universal and MetaX — all cutting-edge AI targets, and unmanned delivery vehicles have never appeared on its list until Neolix came along.

This is the first time the fund has included an unmanned delivery enterprise in its investment portfolio, and its signal significance has gone far beyond the financial scope. This reflects that Neolix's technical route of "L4-level unmanned urban distribution vehicles + embodied intelligence" and its vision of "building a global AI logistics infrastructure" have been recognized by national-level industrial capital. Neolix has been redefined from a pure autonomous driving technology enterprise to a key scenario carrier for AI to empower the physical logistics industry and serve the national strategy of new quality productive forces.

The policy environment is also accelerating the development of the unmanned delivery vehicle industry. In July, the Ministry of Transport stated that it will plan and launch standardized application pilots for unmanned express delivery vehicles during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. In August, the *Implementation Plan for Logistics Network Construction* jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Transport explicitly named and promoted the commercial operation of unmanned distribution in express delivery and instant delivery scenarios. In September, nine departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology even included the multi-scenario application pilot of functional unmanned vehicles in the "15th Five-Year Plan" for the Intelligent Connected New Energy Vehicle Industry.

With the continuous favorable industrial policies on the one hand and the endorsement of the national-level fund on the other, it is very obvious that Neolix has been pushed to the position of the "national team" in the unmanned delivery track, or in other words, it has obtained the "admission ticket" of the national team.

In addition, there are two other players worth mentioning separately, one is Alibaba AEF NextGen Hong Kong Fund, and the other is GAC Capital. This is the first time that Alibaba has appeared in Neolix's shareholder list, while Tencent has already joined in the Series D round. So far, Neolix has become the only company in this track that has shareholders from two major internet enterprises at the same time.

As a wholly-owned subsidiary of GAC Group, GAC Capital completed its investment in Neolix as early as April this year, and promoted the strategic cooperation between Neolix and GAC Lingcheng. On August 25, the first unmanned logistics vehicle X6 jointly developed by the two sides was mass-produced and rolled off the production line at the Guangzhou Conghua factory.

GAC Capital's participation in Neolix's Series E financing this time means further binding of the two sides at the capital level, and further indicates that Neolix in the unmanned delivery track has moved from the stage of "startup companies fighting alone" to the ecological competition stage of "joint mass production with leading vehicle manufacturers".

02

Series E Financing of 400 Million USD, Over-subscribed by 100%

Although the scale of 400 million USD in Series E has decreased compared with the figure of more than 600 million USD in Series D, founder Yu Enyuan said frankly: "The 400 million USD raised in this round is the result of over-subscription, and the original plan was only to raise 200 million USD." When asked whether investors have set performance bet terms, his response was even more straightforward: "We are over-subscribed by one time, do you think there will be such clauses?"

This conveys a clear signal that the current capital market is very optimistic about the prospects of the unmanned delivery track, and gives positive expectations for its commercialization path and profit prospects. As a head player, Neolix has obviously become a target that is snapped up by investors, which gives it more initiative of choice in this round of capital negotiations. Just as Yu Enyuan said: "Some investors may not have a large share, but we think they are valuable, and we are willing to let them in."

What is the standard of value? From the perspective of several new investors, the direction is already very clear: to make arrangements in advance for globalization and the ecological chain.

For example, Vertex Growth under Temasek obviously does not value the domestic express delivery scenario. Temasek's network in Southeast Asia, coupled with Neolix's already deployed implementation capabilities in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South Asia, has formed a clear overseas expansion synergy line. The logic of CP Robotics is also very clear. CP Group has a deep foundation in retail, agriculture and cold chain in Thailand and ASEAN, and supermarket retail and fresh cold chain distribution are exactly the most mature commercial scenarios for unmanned vehicles.

The follow-on investment camp of old shareholders is also worth looking at. Leishi Capital, SoftBank Asia, Yizhuang State Investment, Gaorong Capital, SCP Group, Yunqi Partners, Dahui VGC... none of them cashed out and left, but continued to increase their positions. At a time when the capital winter has not completely receded, the behavior of old shareholders voting with money is more convincing than any due diligence report.

Why can Neolix continue to gain trust? The confidence mainly comes from two aspects. The first is that the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) has been clearly calculated. TCO includes not only the vehicle purchase price, but also about ten core indicators such as hardware, safety, technology, cloud services, operation and maintenance, and each indicator can be broken down into more detailed costs.

Yu Enyuan said bluntly that TCO is the "North Star Metric" that Neolix has identified since the first day of its entrepreneurship, and all R&D and operations are moving towards this goal. "As long as we help customers reduce costs, customers will use Neolix's unmanned vehicles, whether it is selling vehicles, renting vehicles, or providing transportation capacity services."

There is no big change in the appearance of Neolix's products, but as the vehicle durability is increased to 400,000 kilometers over 8 years, the daily working hours are increased from 12 hours to 18 hours, the full life cycle TCO has reached more than 50% ahead of the industry average level, and more than 20% ahead of the second-ranked player.

This has also become the core foundation for Neolix to maintain a healthy business model. Under the background that TCO continues to attract customers, Neolix has deployed more than 30,000 L4-level unmanned delivery vehicles around the world, covering more than 20 countries and over 300 cities. The total autonomous driving operation mileage of the fleet has exceeded 260 million kilometers, with more than 1 million kilometers added every day. In many domestic cities such as Qingdao, Linyi, and Hangzhou, the deployment of Neolix's unmanned vehicles in a single city has exceeded 1,000 units. The larger the scale, the more obvious the dilution effect of procurement and R&D, and the cost advantage will be further expanded, thus forming a positive cycle.

It is reported that Neolix has achieved consecutive monthly profits in the first half of 2025, which leads to the second point why it is trusted by capital, that is, the internal goal is clear, pointing to overall profitability next year. In a track that has long been questioned as "commercialization is far away", being able to put the profit schedule on the table is already a gesture in itself.

03

Valuation Kept Secret, Possibly Preparing for IPO

For this financing, Neolix has not disclosed its valuation, and there must be considerations behind this. At present, the unmanned delivery track is in a stage of "hundred schools of thought contending in the Spring and Autumn Period", and the pattern is far from settled. Once Neolix announces the post-investment valuation, it will most likely immediately become the anchor for the whole industry to benchmark against, which may lead to two consequences: one is that it will directly raise the pricing expectation of the whole industry, and the other is that it may bring pressure to its subsequent financing, and even the valuation negotiation at the time of IPO.

Although the company's current executives are still tight-lipped about the listing matters, the outside world has always paid special attention to the dynamics of Neolix's IPO. In August this year, Neolix has officially completed the shareholding system restructuring, which is a prerequisite for listing on the A-share and Hong Kong stock markets, and is widely interpreted by the outside world as paving the way for IPO.

In short, for Neolix at present, keeping "secret" may be the most rigorous and accurate approach, which can also reserve more flexibility and narrative space for its capitalization actions in the next stage.

Moreover, the word "over-subscribed" itself has already explained the premium. With old shareholders' follow-on investment and no performance bet terms, the market will naturally calculate how much higher the valuation is than that of the Series D round. More importantly, Neolix is using operational data to replace valuation narratives. The operation scale of more than 30,000 unmanned vehicles, more than 1 million kilometers of new mileage per day, a total of 260 million kilometers, more than 20 countries, more than 300 cities — these figures obviously explain the problem better than a valuation, and can better reflect its value.

As Yu Enyuan stated firmly: "The internal attitude of the company is to be invulnerable to all distractions and go all out, and we must achieve profitability next year." For Neolix at present, it is well aware that the most core task before it is to achieve a comprehensive commercial closed loop, rather than chasing book wealth. When the company achieves overall profitability, valuation and listing will be a natural result. This pragmatic attitude of returning to the essence of business is the fundamental confidence for Neolix to break through against the trend in the capital winter.

This article is from the WeChat official account "GPLP" (ID: gplpcn), written by kimsu, and authorized for release by 36Kr.