AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/25 Report--

A major personnel change has taken place in the domestic self-driving start-up company Horse Zhihang. According to sources, Lawrence Steen, chief financial officer of Little Horse Zhixing, left in early March. Lawrence Steen no longer served as CFO for personal reasons, and Wang Haojun took over as CFO from now on.

"Automotive Industry concern" looked at the official website of Ma Zhixing and found that Wang Haojun has appeared in the ranks of the leadership of the official website, holding the position of chief financial officer of the company's CFO. Wang Haojun is one of the founding members of Horse Zhixing, and has held many core leadership roles, including COO, technical leader of self-driving map and positioning module, head of American R & D center, head of Shanghai R & D center, etc., but the position of COO is no longer established within the pony.

According to the data, Wang Haojun graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University, went to the United States for further study, and obtained a doctorate from the computer Department of the University of Southern California, majoring in multi-dimensional data and mobile positioning services. Prior to joining Horse Zhixing, Wang Haojun worked in IBM Silicon Valley Lab (Silicon Valley Lab) and Baidu US R & D Center, where he worked on database engine and big data information system development, and as an early member led the development of Baidu self-driving map and positioning system.

As for Lawrence Steen, market sources say Lawrence Steen will join a New York-based private equity firm as a partner after leaving Horse Zhixing. In fact, Lawrence Steen has joined Horse Zhixing less than two years ago, and most of the industry feels "very sudden" when he leaves office. After all, this is the critical moment for Horse Zhixing IPO at this stage. On June 25, 2021, Lawrence Steen, former vice chairman of JPMorgan Chase Investment Bank, joined the company as chief financial officer. At that time, Ma Zhixing stressed in a high profile in his appointment that Lawrence Steen joined in boosting Ma Zhixing's business growth and global layout, and jointly promoted the large-scale deployment of self-driving technology. Peng Jun, founder and CEO of Xiaoma Zhixing, welcomed him very much and said: "We very much welcome Lawrence to join us. He will promote the next stage of the development of the company."

The "next stage of development" mentioned above is that Ma Zhixing took a key step in the capital market to carry out IPO, when the industry reported that Xiaoma Zhihang was considering listing in the United States, so Lawrence Steen was also given the important task.

Lawrence Steen graduated from Harvard University and later received a master's degree in business administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a senior financial industry executive. Before joining Pony Horse, he worked with General Electric, United Technologies, Honeywell, Emerson, Ford, etc., and held many important leadership positions, including Managing Director of Morgan Stanley Investment. Executive director of Goldman Sachs Investment Co., Ltd.

Founded in Silicon Valley at the end of 2016, Xiao Ma Zhixing is one of the representatives of domestic self-driving companies, co-founded by Peng Jun and Lou Tiancheng. According to the official website, Peng Jun serves as CEO, Lou Tiancheng serves as CTO, Wang Haojun serves as CFO, and Yao Qizhi, dean of the Cross-Information Research Institute of Tsinghua University, serves as chief adviser to Xiaoma Zhixing.

According to Tianyan information, Pony Horse has received a total of eight rounds of financing, with a total financing amount of more than 1.1 billion US dollars, including Sequoia Capital, IDG Capital, Morningside Capital, Junlian Capital, Siming Investment, Toyota, FAW Group and so on. On March 7, 2022, Horse Zhihang completed its first D-round financing with a valuation of US $8.5 billion, making it the highest valued company among self-driving start-ups in China. Lawrence Steen said bluntly at the time: "the company's financial position is very sound, providing a solid foundation for the development of Horse Zhixing in the next few years, until we start the process of large-scale commercialization."

However, the ideal is very plump, realistic and bony. Or affected by the adjustment of the business side and the loss of core staff, Ma Zhixing's IPO plan has been stranded. Two years ago, Pony Ma Zhihang hoped to list at a valuation of $12 billion through SPAC, and people familiar with the matter said on Aug. 12, 2021 that Ma Zhihang had suspended plans to list in the United States through SPAC, but still wanted to list in the United States.

Prior to this, there was news in the market that there was a major adjustment in the business side of Pony Horse, with the proportion of layoffs expected to reach 1/4. In addition, the company's core staff continued to lose, including Zhao Ruixuan, vice president of strategic cooperation and financing, Pan Zhenhao, head of self-driving technology in the truck department, Sun Haowen, head of the domestic self-driving PnC group, and other core personnel left after the business adjustment. In response to this news, Xiao Ma Zhixing responded that the business structure is being adjusted, which belongs to the normal flow of personnel. at present, the company is in good financial condition and the business is running normally.

Now that Lawrence Steen has left office and the job of CFO has changed, it is not clear whether Horse Zhixing's IPO plan will be affected by this. However, in terms of the current field of self-driving, the field of autopilot is experiencing a cold wave, and many companies are facing layoffs or even bankruptcy. After completing D-round financing in March 2022, Horse Zhixing did not carry out financing, which means that Horse Zhixing needs to make its own blood. What we need to pay attention to is Self-driving is a relatively high-cost project, and there is still a long way to go for Horse Zhixing to be commercialized on a large scale. As for what kind of innovation will happen to Horse Zhixing after Wang Haojun, who is more adept at technology flow, takes over CFO, it will take more time to verify.

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