Dissolving the subsidiary, Li Shufu reorganizes the robotics landscape

Author | Zhou Zhiyu

Editor | Zhang Xiaoling

A company with a halo of success suddenly reached a turning point in its fate.

At the beginning of October, news about the dissolution of OneStar Robotics spread quietly in the industry, and initially, few believed it. After all, just a month ago, the company had announced a financing round worth hundreds of millions, backed by well-known institutions such as Baidu Ventures. Moreover, its founder is Li Xingxing, the son of Geely Group Chairman Li Shufu.

However, Wall Street News confirmed from OneStar Robotics employees that they had received a dissolution notice. The company's CTO and co-founder Ding Yan also updated his work experience, marking his tenure at OneStar Robotics as ending in October 2025. OneStar Robotics' public account cleared all historical records, as if erased with a single click in the digital world.

This company, with a prominent background and substantial resources, seemed insulated from the word "failure." However, the logic of the business world is far more complex than it appears on the surface. Under the highest strategic intent of "One Geely," a profound internal resource integration is underway. Even projects led by Li Shufu's children must make way for a larger strategic vision.

Looking back at the brief history of OneStar Robotics, its starting point is enviably high.

Since its inception, OneStar Robotics has been regarded as an important chess piece in Geely's foray into robotics. On July 12 of this year, it secured hundreds of millions in a "friends and family" funding round, with investors including Cao Cao Mobility, Jingneng Microelectronics, and Chunshan Capital, all past investors in Geely-related industries.

More importantly, OneStar Robotics did not rely on its background but proposed a unique differentiated development path. It did not follow the industry mainstream to create eye-catching demonstration models but innovatively adopted the core strategy of "reverse AI." The essence of this approach lies in starting from actual tasks on the production line, reverse-engineering and designing algorithms and workflows, allowing robots to iterate and evolve through real-world practice. This pragmatic philosophy carries a distinct Geely style: creating value with technology in factories rather than performing in showrooms.

To support this vision, OneStar assembled a strong technical team. The company not only collaborated with top professor teams from Fudan and Tsinghua universities but also brought in star researcher Ding Yan from Shanghai AI Lab as co-founder and CTO. This small but elite team has over half of its members with overseas academic or work backgrounds.

Driven by multiple advantages in funding, technology, talent, and application scenarios, OneStar Robotics experienced rapid development.

In August, OneStar Robotics established a joint laboratory with universities and launched its first wheeled dual-arm robot product. In September, it secured another hundreds of millions in seed funding, with well-known market-oriented institutions among the investors. It is reported that the company obtained commercial orders just two months after its operation.

In the early hours before the National Day holiday, Ding Yan continued to update his social media, seeking business partners for OneStar Robotics.

All signs indicated that this was a rising star racing at high speed. However, all of this came to an abrupt halt after the National Day holiday OneStar Robotics has not come to this point without a trace. Back on September 28, the brand launch event of Qianli Technology became a key node signaling the conclusion. At that event, Li Shufu personally supported Qianli Technology's founder, Yin Qi, and gave a high evaluation. His assertion that "the future belongs to Yin Qi" has clearly conveyed the final strategic choice to the outside world.

Robotics is one of the key businesses that Qianli Technology will focus on developing in the future. The business direction of OneStar Robotics overlaps with the significant investments and concentrated resource support from Geely for Qianli Technology.

Under Geely's "Taizhou Declaration," to achieve the overall goal of "One Geely," any projects that have positioning conflicts and may cause internal resource waste must be replanned.

For Li Shufu, the profit margins of traditional automobile manufacturing are increasingly being squeezed, while emerging businesses represented by embodied intelligence have profit margins several times higher. Geely's goal is to secure a place on the broader stage of "AI + Cars + Robotics."

However, the road to this future requires huge and concentrated investments. In such a high-risk, high-return field, any dispersion of resources may lead to missed opportunities. Therefore, integrating internal forces and betting all chips on the most promising entity has become an inevitable choice. In this major chess game concerning the future of the group, commercial rationality prevails over everything.

Is Geely's path in robotics now smooth sailing?

A noteworthy detail is that after the dissolution of OneStar Robotics, its highly regarded technical team was not directly integrated into Qianli Technology. They were given other options, including following the former CTO to start a new venture or seeking new opportunities.

In particular, Qianli Technology's current core business focus remains in the field of intelligent driving, and its robotics-related business planning is still in the early stages, with no large-scale recruitment needs in the short term.

This creates an interesting situation: Li Shufu has cleared the track for the future champion he has chosen, but this contender does not seem fully prepared to enter the new arena of robotics. The integration of OneStar feels more like a forward-looking layout to ensure long-term strategic unity, even at the cost of ending a project that is currently showing good momentum.

Li Shufu has boldly restructured the landscape, directing the future of the robotics business towards Qianli Technology. However, for Qianli, the real story of powering up robotics may still take some time.

Geely's AI ambitions continue, but the road to that dream of a robotics empire has been complicated by this decisive integration, adding a bit of waiting and suspense.

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