ZhenFund and Momenta's Ten-Year Journey, as the "Physical AI" First Stock Goes Public

On July 8, Momenta (6880.HK) officially listed on the main board of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, marking the debut of the world's first "physical AI" stock. Simultaneously, Momenta announced that its mass production business has surpassed 1 million units deployed.

Yuan Liu, Managing Partner of ZhenFund, commented:

As Momenta's first-round investor, ZhenFund has had the privilege of witnessing the company and team's growth from the very beginning. Many entrepreneurs view "becoming a publicly listed company" as the finish line, but for companies truly driven by grand vision and purpose, going public is merely a new starting point.

Ten years ago, Xudong already demonstrated a maturity and composure beyond his years, unwavering will and determination, and the ability to make long-term judgments and plans. Over the years, he has led his team in transforming that vision from a business plan on paper into reality.

Over the past decade, the world has undergone tremendous changes, technology has continuously evolved, and Momenta has consistently stood at the forefront of its era. Looking back, how quickly those ten years have passed. It has been an honor to be part of this journey — congratulations to Xudong, congratulations to Momenta, and here's to an even brighter future!

Momenta priced its IPO at HK$295.6 per share. The global offering comprised approximately 22.93 million shares, raising roughly HK$6.8 billion in total proceeds. Market demand was exceptionally strong: the public offering was oversubscribed by 414 times, while the international placement attracted over HK$100 billion in institutional orders. Fourteen cornerstone investors participated, including Singapore's GIC, Fidelity International, Mercedes-Benz, BYD, and BlackRock — an extraordinarily rare showing of global long-term investors making concurrent commitments.

Momenta's story began a decade ago.

Before founding Momenta, Xudong Cao dropped out of a direct PhD program in physics at Tsinghua University, switched fields to join Microsoft Research Asia to study AI, and later served as R&D Director at SenseTime. It was during this period that he turned his attention toward autonomous driving.

In Cao's view, AI sees minor innovations roughly every three years and major breakthroughs about every seven. There was a pattern in AI that deeply captivated him: "Artificial intelligence can learn by doing. You can understand intelligence by building an intelligent agent with your own hands."

In 2016, Cao founded Momenta alongside several Tsinghua classmates and a team of algorithm engineers from Microsoft Research Asia and SenseTime. That November, Momenta closed its $5 million Series A round. Yuan Liu later recalled: "At that point in time, very few people possessed both top-tier academic backgrounds and real-world industry experience."

Yet for the first two years, this path offered almost no positive feedback.

The prevailing consensus held that mass production businesses could not achieve L4 autonomy and could not support sufficiently high commercial value. Many proof-of-concept projects never made it to production, and numerous people left along the way. But those who stayed walked with the company through that dark period.

Momenta persisted with its data flywheel because the team saw clear positive feedback in internal development, and because Cao's experience studying AI convinced him: as long as you establish a low-cost, short-cycle hypothesis-testing mechanism, the system can continuously evolve.

Momenta's mass production business serves the long-term goal of achieving L4 at scale.

Over ten years, Momenta's core strategy has never changed.

Cao has lost count of how many similar nights he has repeated. He once lodged a team of over 400 people near a client's offices, working until 2 a.m. every day.

In 2024, he shared with ZhenFund: "Passion matters. You need to understand why you're doing this. The entrepreneurial cycle is so long that most of the time there's no sense of achievement, but when the team has passion, even hardship feels joyful."

Just as some people always wear the same outfit, Cao has his own: Momenta's black culture T-shirt. On the back is printed a line of text: "TEN YEARS, SAVE ONE MILLION LIVES."

Ten years, one million lives saved.

In 2018, Cao articulated Momenta's three visions: in ten years, save one million lives; in ten years, free up 100% of people's time; in ten years, double logistics and transportation efficiency.

Now, we have walked through the first decade together.

On July 7, Momenta founder Xudong Cao posted on WeChat Moments with just four words: "A new starting point!"

This is also Momenta's starting point for the next decade.