Currently, Tucson Future shares $11.65 per share, with a market capitalization of $2.588 billion.
Wen 丨AI Planet ID: ai_xingqiu
Author 丨 Wang Fei
On April 15, 2021, Tucson Future successfully landed on the NASDAQ, becoming the world's first autonomous driving stock, breaking intraday on the first day of listing and finally closing.
In less than a year, Tucson's future is at a fork in the road to development. According to Reuters, the U.S. government is asking Tucson to sell its operations in China in the future and focus on the U.S. market.
A source confirming that Tucson will sell its China business in the future said that under the strict supervision of China and the United States, Tucson intends to sell its China business for $1 billion in the future. Tucson Future has approached several Chinese investors, including private equity firm Boyu Capital, to find potential buyers. After Tucson solves the "security problem" in the future, its business is expected to grow independently.
Lieyun Network asked Tucson for the future to verify the matter, and the other party said: Thank you for your attention to us, and the relevant information cannot be disclosed for the time being.
Affected by this news and the environment of the soaring of The Internet of China, Tucson's future stock price will come out of the deep V market. Currently, Tucson Future shares $11.65 per share, with a market capitalization of $2.588 billion.
Source: Screenshot
On June 30, 2021, Tucson Future shares hit a high of $71.24 per share. Compared with last night's closing price, Tucson shares still fell by 83.65% at their highs, and the market value evaporated by about $13.238 billion.
The listing was immediately investigated by the United States, and just last month it reached an agreement with the U.S. government
As a technology company that operates in both the United States and China, Tucson Future came under ongoing investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) shortly after its listing.
Tucson Future submitted a report to CFIUS on August 15, 2021, explaining how Sun Dream Inc, an investor arm of Sina, purchased Mori Future's redeemable preferred stock in 2017.
To reassure the U.S. government, Tucson Future made it clear in its august 15, 2021 report that there are no Chinese members at the company's top management. In its report, it read: "Dr. Hou Xiaodi and Mr. Chen Mo are members of our Board of Directors. Dr. Hou Xiaodi is a U.S. citizen, Mr. Chen Mo is a Canadian citizen, and Sun Dream, Inc currently owns about 5.8% of the voting rights of the company, controlled by a U.S. citizen. The current member company board of directors and the entire senior management team are U.S. or Canadian citizens. ”
On February 18 of this year, CFIUS officially concluded its long-term investigation into Tucson's future. Tucson Future also said on Feb. 22 that it had reached an agreement with U.S. authorities to address safety concerns related to its self-driving truck business.
Under the agreement, Tucson will future give the U.S. government some oversight over the technology behind its self-driving operations. In addition, two of the company's Sina-related board members will leave after their terms end this year.
According to a SEC filing, Tucson future agreed to "restrict access to certain data from the company by its China division, including source code and algorithms for its self-driving truck business, and to adopt a technology control program." In addition to this, Tucson will in the future appoint a new security officer and security chief, who will set up a "government security committee" that will have to meet regularly and report to the Committee on Foreign Investment under the U.S. Treasury Department. Tucson Future said that with this agreement, the U.S. government will determine that the company "does not have unresolved national security issues."
"This is a reasonable result of the investigation, and operationally, we can continue to develop self-driving truck technology internationally," said Jim Mullen, Tucson's future chief administrative and legal officer, "We fully understand the sensitivity of AI technology, and its relationship to the geopolitical climate, and we will do our best to comply with the agreement." ”
After the above agreement was reached, Tucson began to rapidly promote the personnel adjustment of senior management in the future.
In early March, both the chairman and the CEO stepped down, and the stock price plummeted nearly 22% overnight.
According to public information, Tucson Future was co-founded by Chen Mo and Hou Xiaodi in 2015.
Among them, Chen Mo is a serial entrepreneur, Tucson Future is his fifth company, before that, Chen Mo was the founder and CEO of the online gaming platform Deep Blue Brothers, and was also the founder of a start-up in the field of traditional online advertising and used car online market, with more than 12 years of entrepreneurial and management experience.
Xiaodi Hou has more than ten years of R&D experience in computer vision and machine learning, is responsible for the development of new technologies and advanced products in Tucson in the future, and has developed the leading theory of visual significance computing models in the field of computer vision.
Lu Cheng joined Tucson Future as CFO in 2018 and was promoted to CEO in September 2020.
On the evening of March 3 this year, Tucson Future, the first share of autonomous driving, issued an announcement of "major events" and announced the company's chairman succession plan. Lu Cheng, the company's former CEO, and Chen Mo, the company's former chairman, resigned from their respective positions. At present, both positions are taken over by Hou Xiaodi, the company's CTO. Former CEO Lu Cheng will serve as Hou Xiaodi's CEO advisor until March 2023 to further ensure an effective handover.
Affected by the news, Tucson's future stock price fell in response, falling by 21.92% overnight.
According to the prospectus, before Tucson's future listing, Chen Mo held 9.14% of class A shares, and Hou Xiaodi held 8.51% of the shares, and they had 33.83% and 33.59% of the voting rights respectively. Lü Cheng holds 1.74% of the shares. After the listing, Chen Mo held 7.6% of Class A shares and 50% of Class B shares, with 31.4% of the voting rights, while Hou Xiaodi held 7.1% of Class A shares and 50% of Class B shares, holding 31.1% of the voting rights.
It is worth mentioning that since its inception in 2015, Tucson Future has completed a total of 10 rounds of financing, with a total financing amount of more than 600 million US dollars (about 4 billion yuan). Among them, Sina has invested in Tucson Future many times. Sina Chairman Cao Guowei is an independent director of Tucson Future, holding 20% of the shares.
On February 24, when Tucson Future released its 2021 annual report, it announced that Sina Chairman Cao Guowei and Sina CFO Zhang Yi would no longer serve as directors of Tucson Future after the expiration of their term of office.
Last year's net loss exceeded $700 million, and this year plans to deliver commercial-scale L4 autonomous driving technology
Tucson's latest financial report shows that the company's annual report attributable to common shareholders of the parent company in fiscal 2021 was -737 million US dollars, compared with -178 million US dollars in the same period last year, and the loss widened by 287%; operating income was 6.261 million US dollars, compared with 1.843 million US dollars in the same period last year, up 230% year-on-year.
It is worth mentioning that so far, Tucson has not recognized a single substantial revenue in the future, with a cumulative deficit of $1.1 billion as of December 31, 2021. The company expects the loss ratio to rise sharply over the next period of time.
By the end of 2021, Tucson future has $1.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
It is understood that R&D expenditure is the main reason for Tucson's continued losses in the future. And continuous investment in research and development is also showing results.
On the evening of December 22, 2021, a semi-heavy truck loaded with Tucson Future Autonomous Driving System (ADS) departed from Tucson, Arizona, USA, and traveled more than 80 miles (about 130 kilometers) through the city's roads and highways, successfully arriving at a distribution center in Phoenix. The trip was operated entirely by Tucson's future autonomous driving system, with no drivers and no remote human intervention.
The test not only means that the world's first heavy-duty semi-trailer truck will complete full self-driving on public roads, but also means that Tucson's future "Driver Out" project has reached a significant milestone after 1 and a half years of hard work. As of December 31, 2021, Tucson's future self-driving trucks have accumulated 6.3 million miles of road mileage.
In terms of commercial delivery, Tucson Future currently has 70 self-driving trucks worldwide. At the end of 2021, the number of bookings for future self-driving trucks in Tucson increased to 6975.
Previously, Lu Cheng, who is still tucson's future CEO, said: "As a public company, we achieved all the important milestones in 2021 in the first year, including the industry's first 80-mile end-to-end driverless autonomous freight business. "In the last quarter, we automated the first automated freight corridor; into 2022, we will go all out to deliver commercial-scale L4 level autonomous driving technology." ”
Next, under the leadership of Hou Xiaodi, whether Tucson can complete the above goals and what kind of future he will fight, we will continue to pay attention to.
(First image source: Tucson Future)
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