On July 8th, MOMENTA officially listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with the stock code 6880.HK. The issue price was HKD 295.60 per share, raising approximately HKD 5.89 billion, with a market capitalization exceeding HKD 70 billion, creating the "first stock of physical AI."

Behind the bustling bell-ringing ceremony, a figure deeply rooted in the industry, Hengxu Capital, quietly emerged. As early as 2021, Hengxu Capital had already invested in the early-stage development of MOMENTA. From initial technical assessments to continuous industrial empowerment, from the first investment to witnessing the IPO, Hengxu Capital has accompanied this intelligent driving startup in its growth into an industry leader.

Behind this is a story about how industry CVCs can navigate cycles through deep understanding and long-term companionship, and based on this, complete a leap in investment strategy.

Discovering Value

Investing Before Consensus Forms

In 2016, MOMENTA was established in Suzhou. At that time, the autonomous driving sector was a boiling sea.

The California road test license became a capital flaunted by major companies, with L4-level autonomous driving companies frequently making headlines with financing news in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The optimistic expectation that "driverless cars will be fully popularized within five years" filled media headlines, and capital flocked in, with almost all investment institutions betting on the "one-step" L4 route.

Amidst the excitement, the Hengxu Capital team remained cautious.

As a CVC deeply rooted in the automotive industry chain, Hengxu Capital has a clearer understanding of the complexities of the automotive industry than financial investors. From technical validation to mass production delivery, from regulatory compliance to user acceptance, the commercialization of autonomous driving is by no means a one-time achievement. While most investors were still chasing the flashy demos of L4, the Hengxu team was more concerned with: which technical route could first cross the "valley of death" and truly achieve large-scale commercialization?

It was within this framework of thought that MOMENTA came into Hengxu Capital's view.

The resume of founder Cao Xudong is impressive—graduated from Tsinghua University, background in Microsoft Research Asia, and an early member of SenseTime. But what truly impressed the Hengxu team was MOMENTA's choice of a "non-mainstream" path at that time: starting with L2+ assisted driving, obtaining massive amounts of real road test data through mass-produced vehicles, and feeding back into L4 technology iteration, forming a data flywheel closed loop of "mass production data algorithm iteration for better experience and more data."

This seemingly simple business logic is underpinned by a profound judgment about the industry's endgame: whoever first obtains massive data can run the algorithm closed loop ahead of others and win in the endgame of intelligent driving. This is in stark contrast to the model of most autonomous driving companies at the time, which was "develop first and land later," and also means that MOMENTA needed to excel in two areas simultaneously: technology must be sufficiently advanced, and commercialization must be sufficiently rapid.

To this end, the Hengxu team conducted extensive industry research and interviews. They tracked and compared the technical routes of major global autonomous driving companies, assessing the speed and value of data accumulation in different scenarios. This kind of "slow thinking," exhausting research and repeated verification before decision-making, ultimately allowed the Hengxu team to anchor this target ahead of the formation of industry consensus Crossing Cycles

Firmly Accompanying in the Valley

Looking back at Hengxu Capital's investment journey in Momenta, it has not been a smooth path.

The intelligent driving industry has experienced multiple cycles of ups and downs over the past few years. Around 2022, the capital market's enthusiasm for autonomous driving sharply cooled, and the industry entered a "valuation adjustment period." Many star autonomous driving companies fell into difficulties, with some laying off employees, some seeing their valuations halved, and some even heading towards bankruptcy. The market was filled with discussions about the "bursting of the autonomous driving bubble."

Hengxu Capital chose to firmly accompany. This is not blind optimism, but rather based on continuous tracking and judgment of Momenta's core competitiveness. During the industry's low period, the Hengxu team paid closer attention to its mass production delivery progress, customer expansion situation, and cash flow status.

This "counter-cyclical" determination is a unique advantage of industrial CVCs. Unlike financial investors who pursue short-term returns, industrial capital seeks long-term collaborative value in the industrial chain. Only by crossing cycles can true industrial barriers be established.

Building a Closed Loop

From Chips to Algorithms to Systems

Momenta's successful listing on the Hong Kong stock market is a key milestone in Hengxu Capital's layout in the intelligent driving sector, but it is by no means the end of the industrial layout.

Industry estimates indicate that by 2025, the domestic intelligent driving market will reach 450 billion yuan, and it is expected to exceed 530 billion yuan by 2026. This is just the starting phase of industry development: with L2+ advanced driver assistance systems penetrating the mainstream passenger car market priced at 100,000 to 150,000 yuan, coupled with the gradual commercialization of L4-level Robotaxi and trunk logistics in limited scenarios, it is expected that by 2030, the domestic intelligent driving market will approach a trillion yuan scale. The vast market space gives rise to diverse segmented tracks, with each scenario such as passenger car urban NOA, heavy truck trunk autonomous driving, park unmanned delivery, and open road Robotaxi having its own technical pain points and industry barriers, and the broad market space is sufficient to support multiple industry leaders to independently list and develop.

In addition to Momenta, Hengxu Capital participated in the first round of external financing for Zhuoyue Technology in 2024. Moreover, the Hengxu team covered the intelligent driving chip leader Horizon as early as 2018, achieving full coverage of domestic market-oriented intelligent driving leading enterprises. Now, the industry has fully entered a new stage dominated by multimodal large models, with the core of competition shifting from single-function comparisons to long-term competition in underlying general intelligence. In April 2026, Zhuoyue Technology launched the world's first native multimodal foundational model for mobile physical AI at the Beijing Auto Show, relying on strong environmental perception and behavior prediction capabilities to realize the application of world models in real traffic scenarios. With breakthroughs in underlying technology, Zhuoyue Technology is transforming from a supplier of passenger car driver assistance to a comprehensive mobile physical AI service provider, covering various scenarios including passenger cars, heavy trucks, buses, unmanned delivery, and Robotaxi, collaborating with 34 core customers and ecological partners, and continuously building a full-scenario intelligent travel industry ecosystem At this point, Hengxu Capital has established a complete investment closed loop in the intelligent driving industry covering "chips - algorithms - vehicle systems," with three major targets forming a differentiated complementary layout:

Momenta: A benchmark in algorithmic routes, relying on mass production data to iterate world models, focusing on building a general physical AI algorithm foundation; Zhaoyu Technology: An integrated full-stack solution provider, using a native multimodal large model paired with self-developed domain controllers to output full-scene mobile physical AI system solutions; Horizon: The core of intelligent driving computing power, relying on self-developed automotive-grade AI chips and BPU architecture to provide underlying computing power support for advanced autonomous driving;

The three investment main lines of chips, algorithms, and vehicle systems support and empower each other, allowing Hengxu to form a coherent industrial ecological layout in the intelligent driving track; on the other hand, it enables the team to comprehensively assess and deeply participate in the industry's technological iteration and industrialization process from the three dimensions of computing power, algorithms, and vehicle systems. This complete industrial chain layout is not a short-term trend-following arrangement but the inevitable result of Hengxu's team's twenty years of deep cultivation in the automotive industry: relying on profound industrial accumulation, it can predict the ultimate value of the track before industry consensus takes shape; at the same time, relying on mature CVC industrial empowerment capabilities, it transforms the industrial insights accumulated in the automotive track into a long-term investment strategy covering diverse cutting-edge fields.

Strategic Leap

From the Automotive Industry to Cutting-edge Technology

The listing of Momenta and the layout of Zhaoyu are a microcosm of Hengxu Capital's deep cultivation in the automotive industry chain, but they are far from the whole picture.

In 2026, the global economic and technological landscape is undergoing unprecedented reshaping. The geopolitical game, deep adjustments in global supply chains, and the accelerated iteration of disruptive technologies represented by artificial intelligence together constitute a complex and challenging macro background. The investment dividend period relying solely on information asymmetry or model innovation has long passed, and "industrial capital," which possesses deep industrial cognition and can provide real value empowerment to invested enterprises, is increasingly becoming the core force driving technological self-reliance and high-quality development of the real economy.

It is against this backdrop that Hengxu Capital has completed its strategic leap from "automotive industry CVC" to "comprehensive investment platform for cutting-edge technology."

The core logic of this leap stems from the market-oriented deconstruction and reshaping of the core capabilities of CVC honed in the automotive industry, specifically reflected in three aspects:

The penetrating power of industrial insights utilizes the "chain length" perspective of the complex manufacturing industry of automotive to accurately predict the technological changes and demand inflection points upstream and downstream. Hengxu's early investment in Momenta precisely penetrated the underlying needs of automakers for intelligent driving technology, anchoring the ultimate value of the data flywheel before consensus formation.

The foresight of technology transfer keenly captures the enormous opportunities for core automotive technologies (such as three electrics, intelligent cockpits, and autonomous driving) to spill over into other fields. The migration of intelligent driving technology to embodied intelligent robots and the extension of power battery technology to the energy storage field have all been systematically identified and laid out within this foresight framework The empowerment of the ecological network is achieved by constructing open ecosystems such as "Hengyouhui," effectively linking diverse entities such as invested enterprises, industry partners, and financial institutions, transitioning from mere capital injection to deep empowerment of "capital + resources + scenarios."

The evolution of this core capability has opened a strategic channel for Hengxu Capital to move from the automotive industry chain to a broader technological domain. Along the capability mainline of "industry insight, technology transfer, and ecological empowerment," Hengxu Capital has strategically positioned itself in the artificial intelligence sector: investing in computing chip companies such as Dongfang Suanxin and Zhi'ao Tong, advanced packaging companies like Shenghe Jingwei and Wuyuan Semiconductor, core chip companies including Changxin Technology, Gechuang Communication, and Unisoc, model companies such as Jiyue Xingchen, Baitu Shengke, and VAST, as well as embodied intelligence enterprises like Yinhe Tongyong, Tashi Zhihang, and Yuanli Lingji, forming a complete chain layout from computing power to models to applications. This layout method validates Hengxu Capital's industrial investment approach. Meanwhile, in the cutting-edge technology sectors advocated by the state, Hengxu Capital has also quickly positioned itself in early or founding rounds, investing in a number of quality enterprises such as Yuanxin Satellite, Mingshi Brain-Machine, Naoji Medical, Shenfujianxing, Taiyi Liangsheng, Xinghe Juhuan, and Xin'ao Juhuan.

Thus, Hengxu Capital has built a comprehensive investment landscape in cutting-edge technology that is broad in coverage, clear in logic, and distinct in hierarchy, successfully transforming from an investment force deeply rooted in the automotive industry to a comprehensive investment institution covering diverse cutting-edge technology sectors such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, commercial aerospace, brain-machine interfaces, quantum computing, and controllable nuclear fusion.

Conclusion

A milestone, a new starting point

The listing of Momenta is a validation of Hengxu Capital's early judgment and a recognition of its CVC model.

More importantly, it confirms that Hengxu Capital's path of starting from the automotive industry chain and migrating its industrial capabilities to broader cutting-edge technology fields is correct. From intelligent driving to embodied intelligence, from chips to models, from commercial aerospace to controllable nuclear fusion, from biomanufacturing to brain-machine interfaces, Hengxu Capital has carved out a path of transition from industrial CVC to a comprehensive platform investment institution through precise layouts and long-term companionship.

Looking ahead, Hengxu Capital will adhere to the investment mainline of "investing early, investing small, investing long-term, and investing in hard technology," with hard technology as the core depth and biotechnology and life health as horizontal extensions, continuing to contribute unique "capital power" to China's technological innovation ecosystem as a "value discoverer," "resource integrator," and "long-term companion."