On April 15, 2021, with the first halo of autonomous driving, Tucson Future officially landed on NASDAQ, although its revenue in the previous year was only $1.48 million, but it lost $180 million.
But this did not affect its success in raising $1.35 billion in financing, and its market value reached $8.5 billion, making it the envy of players on the autonomous driving track
Of course, this is not only the surface scenery of Tucson's future, but also a feast for benefits.
For example, his president Lu Cheng, who has an annual salary of 390,000 US dollars, has obtained an equity incentive value of 16 million US dollars as of 2020, that is, the equity incentive obtained in 3 years has exceeded 40 years of annual salary
As of the listing node, the total size of Tucson's future equity incentive plan may reach $800 million
Even ordinary employees, even new employees, ate the meat of this feast. For example, Tucson's employee equity incentive mechanism makes employees who have been employed only two weeks before the listing worth $3 million
As well as high-salary, unconventional insurance benefits, free meals and other benefits at that time, it was even more hungry for many large factory employees
Although Tucson's future revenue at the time was only $1.48 million, various executives were clearly making money.
Of course, this is not only the capital's expectation for Tucson's future, under the wave of autonomous driving, a large amount of capital has set up a stage to create this feast
However, in just two years and one month, Tucson fell into the mud pit from the sky in the future, and even the enviable benefits of employees in the past did not even have time to be fulfilled, and this dream of benefits came to the edge of the cliff
On May 12, Nasdaq issued Tucson Future an ultimatum to delist, and if Tucson Future does not submit financial reports and other relevant information by May 15, the common stock will be suspended at the market open on May 15, 2023.
As soon as the news came out, its share price plunged nearly 30% from the previous day's closing price.
In fact, it doesn't matter so much whether Tucson Future is still trading normally on the NASDAQ in the future, because as of May 15, its share price is only $0.80 per share, and its market value is only $180 million.
You know, in 2021, Tucson's future stock price was as high as $79 per share, corresponding to a market value of $17.854 billion, that is, in less than two years, its market value has evaporated by 99%.
It can be said that how beautiful it was when it went public, how down it is now...
So how did Tucson get to where it is today?
Tucson Future was founded when the concept of autonomous driving was at its hottest, and its business direction avoided the passenger car direction of the giants, focusing on the commercial vehicle field, and also focusing on L4 autonomous driving solutions for heavy cargo trucks.
Compared with the high difficulty and long investment period of passenger car autonomous driving, as well as the degree of competitiveness, the automatic driving route of commercial vehicles is fixed, easier to land, and the demand is huge, which makes Tucson a sweet potato in the eyes of capital from the beginning.
According to incomplete statistics, since its inception, Tucson Future has obtained 10 rounds of financing, only the public financing amount is 650 million US dollars, the industry expects that including the financing of undisclosed data, Tucson Future has obtained no less than 1 billion US dollars of financing scale before listing.
The capital behind it is even more huge, including Sina, NVIDIA, UPS, Traton, Microventure Capital and other corporate giants and star capital.
From the perspective of prospects, Tucson looks promising in the future, but in reality, Tucson's future autonomous driving business is still facing the problem of difficult landing.
According to the financial report data, in the three years from 2018 to 2020, Tucson's future revenue is: $9,000, $710,000, $1.843 million, after listing, its revenue in 2021 was $6.261 million, and in the first three quarters of 2022, its revenue was $7.51 million.
Since then, Tucson has not released new financial data in the future.
According to the 2022Q2 financial report, as of June 30, 2022, Tucson Technology announced that its total truck reservations reached 7,485 units, but none of them have entered the delivery and mass production stage.
It is worth noting that behind the scale of million-dollar annual revenue, Tucson's future losses are jaw-dropping.
From 2018 to 2021, its net losses were US$45.034 million, US$84.883 million, US$178 million and US$733 million, respectively.
It is worth noting that Lu Cheng, CEO of Tucson Future, said in an interview with the media that Tucson Future still has about $1 billion on its books at the end of 2020. According to the financial report data, as of the end of the first half of 2022, cash and equivalents were $1.156 billion
So in the face of an annual loss of up to $700 million, Tucson's future funds are not generally tight, and without external continuous blood transfusions, Tucson's future is in danger at any time.
The road of external blood transfusion is not generally pessimistic for Tucson's future, because its performance in the capital market is obvious to all.
According to the announcement, Tucson may be delisted at any time in the future, although Tucson will respond in the future by actively appealing to the Nasdaq hearing panel and requesting that the company's suspension date be extended to the hearing date.
But Tucson has stressed several times in the future that there is no guarantee that an extension or appeal to the hearing will succeed.
And there is no guarantee that the third quarter report of last year and the annual report of 2022 will be submitted on time, and it is even said that it is not guaranteed whether it can be submitted or not.
In other words, Tucson Future, who is already eight years old, even though it entered the capital market two years ago, but so far, Tucson Future is not a complete business.
In fact, Tucson's future to this day is not only the problem of the commercialization of the business, but also the internal reasons are the key.
For example, in November last year, Xiaochai also reported on Tucson's future civil unrest drama, and last November, Tucson Future suddenly had a recall letter.
The recall letter said the board had dismissed Hou Xiaodi, the company's co-founder, chairman and CEO, and removed Hou as chairman of the board and a member of the government's safety committee.
So why remove founders, chairmen, and CEOs? Behind it is a US FBI and SEC investigation. The investigation is about whether Mori Mikuri defrauded investors by financing and transferring technology to hydrogen heavy-duty truck startup Hydron.
So who is Hydron? Chen Mo, one of the founders of Tucson's future, founded in March last year, is a new company focused on developing, designing, manufacturing and selling hydrogen fuel heavy trucks and hydrogen refueling infrastructure services that can carry L4 autonomous driving functions.
It is reported that when Hydron was founded, the company recruited several future Tucson employees, some in senior positions, and used Tucson's future know-how and intellectual property.
Some employees even served Hydron while continuing to work for Tucson's future, and some acquired shares in Hydron.
In response, the audit committee alleged that Tucson had leaked confidential information to Hydron, a startup project for Chen Mo.
So what is the relationship between this company and the future of Tucson, a thousand readers and a thousand Hamlets, whether it is civil unrest, double reed, left hand to right hand, or something else may only be known by the parties. You can make up your own brain.
A few months after Hydron's founding, its valuation quickly reached $1 billion, while Tucson's future market capitalization was only $730 million.
Subsequently, Tucson underwent a series of internal adjustments in the future, such as Chen Mo's return and Hou Xiaodi's return.
But in March this year, Hou Xiaodi personally announced his departure and went to the field to start a business again.
That is, the two main founders, back and forth to leave the business and return, and the entrepreneurial projects are related to Tucson's future.
So whether the founders are enemies or brothers, their previous only real differences, or the business between brothers, no one knows, but in the end someone will have to pay.
However, to this day, the fog about Tucson's future has not yet dissipated, and as for the business itself, how to have hematopoietic ability is still unknown.
Where Tucson's future will be, perhaps no one knows, but this game, in the end, there are still winners, right?
Shiba Gouwski ©️
Author|Xiao Chai
Editor|Tan Song