Roadstar, a self-driving startup that once raised hundreds of millions of dollars in financing, went bankrupt just like that?

Last year, a self-driving startup called Roadstar.ai was repeatedly highlighted by the media as setting a new record for single-round financing for self-driving cars. However, no one expected that Roadstar.ai would fall as fast as it rose, and this once star self-driving company has entered liquidation. What's even more ridiculous is that in the capital winter, Roadstar.ai's self-driving company did not die from lack of money, but from internal struggles.

At present, Roadstar.ai has lost investors' confidence after a series of management turmoil. The last round of investors collectively requested to withdraw their capital, nearly 600 million yuan of funds in the company's account were frozen, and a large number of employees' wages were in arrears. Therefore, the company is now facing investors' withdrawal arbitration on one hand and labor arbitration on the other.

In fact, Roadstar.ai once became the most promising new autonomous driving project in China. Like Waymo under Google, Roadstar.ai is positioned to develop L4 autonomous driving technology. The three founders of the company are CEO Tong Xianqiao, CTO Hengcheng and Chief Scientist Zhou Guang, who were all colleagues at Baidu's North American R&D Center. In this industry where high-end technical talents are extremely scarce, with such an experienced trio leading the way, Roadstar.ai has naturally become one of the most promising companies in the field.

In May 2018, Roadstar.ai received US$128 million in Series A financing, led by Shenzhen Capital Group and Lake Capital Group, with a valuation of US$400 million. At the time, it set a record for the highest financing amount in the same round in the autonomous driving industry, and was even dubbed the rising star of the driverless unicorn.

At the same time, Roadstar.ai also released an L4 driverless solution for complex urban roads in China, and stated that because it is equipped with a purely domestic laser radar, the price of this solution is only 1/3 of that of Baidu's similar solution, which can almost be regarded as the high-end driverless technology closest to commercial mass production.

During the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen last November, the company became the first unmanned vehicle startup to cooperate with the conference, deploying several self-driving cars at the hotel where official media were staying to provide shuttle services.

It can be seen that everything was so good for Roadstar.ai at that time, and the research and development of L4 autonomous driving was so smooth and unimpeded, and it took advantage of the momentum.

However, the good times did not last long. Just when the company was in its golden period of growth, Roadstar.ai broke out into internal strife. An official announcement of the removal of the co-founder exposed the internal disputes of the founding team of Roadstar.ai and brought this star project to a sudden halt.

In fact, in the "official statement" to remove the co-founder, the "three major crimes" listed: hiding code, falsifying data, and behind-the-scenes transactions, no actual evidence has been produced so far.

Subsequently, some employees from departments such as marketing, human resources and technology were also fired for violating company rules and damaging company interests. This behavior is even more difficult to understand, and some of the fired employees are currently applying for labor arbitration.

It can be said that the development of the whole thing is completely unreasonable and without rules, completely ignoring the company's operations and business logic. As for the reason, it is obvious that the founding team is too young and lacks management experience. The three founders may not have formed enough trust from the beginning to the end. When the company was still in its early stages, many conflicts arose in the struggle for power and management.

The outbreak of the Roadstar.ai incident has undoubtedly once again exposed the dark side of infighting among China's self-driving startups. The direction and final result of this incident will not only have a negative impact on the core teams of other self-driving startups, but will even shake the domestic self-driving industry landscape.

In addition, Roadstar.ai is not the first domestic autonomous driving startup to have experienced "internal strife".

In December 2017, Baidu sued Wang Jin, the former general manager of Baidu's autonomous driving division, in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court. The lawsuit included allegations that Wang Jin violated the non-competition agreement and hired Baidu-related personnel, registered a company to start a business while in office, and stole company secrets by not returning computers and printers after leaving the company.

Wang Jin

Jingchi Technology was founded by Wang Jin. Its CTO Han Xu was formerly the chief scientist of Baidu's autonomous driving division. Its CFO Lu Qing was previously the CFO of Velodyne, a well-known Silicon Valley lidar company. Its vice president of products Pan Sining was previously the product director of Baidu's autonomous driving division.

Of course, although this incident sounds unrelated to internal strife and more like the story of Xiaopeng Motors stealing Tesla and Apple's driverless technology, it also reflects the chaos within the entire autonomous driving industry. Moreover, Jingchi Technology was subsequently embroiled in a new dispute.

In February 2018, under pressure from the defendant, JingChi Technology's founder Wang Jin resigned as CEO in February this year. Vice President of Technology Yang Qingxiong also withdrew and founded the self-driving truck company Muyue Technology. The remaining co-founders were deeply involved in internal disputes and disputes over the use of the company name, which made people have to worry about the future of the company.

As a technology company focusing on autonomous driving, Jingchi Technology, like Roadstar.ai, started off on a smooth and fast track. However, the lawsuit against Wang Jin and the internal strife have brought a lot of negative impact on Jingchi's development. This case is undoubtedly another example of the irreconcilable conflicts between the co-founders of an autonomous driving startup.

JingChi Technology and Roadstar.ai were once the leaders in China's driverless car startup field, but they have been embroiled in personnel disputes. Roadstar.ai has come to an end because of this, and may become the first company in China's driverless car startup field to fall.

The Roadstar.ai office is empty.

In addition to internal fighting, autonomous driving startups are also facing the urgent situation of how to truly achieve commercialization.

After all, the threshold of the driverless industry is too high, there is a relative lack of technology and talent, there is a huge demand for financing, and it is difficult to see returns in the near future. Although the driverless field was favored by capital giants in the past two years, at present, capital that cannot see returns is concentrating on leading companies and is increasingly focusing on commercial value considerations.

Indeed, without the strong capital of Google and Baidu, self-driving startups must face the urgency of the industry's convergence. How to gain more opportunities for themselves has become the biggest challenge for self-driving startups. However, the young co-founders fell into the bloody plot of competing for interests before they really got ahead, which is unavoidable.

The weather is getting warmer and colder, and it is the most difficult to take a break. Just like the shining stars, the startup driverless companies can really go bankrupt at any time.