【New Stock IPO】Le Dong Robotics’ Zhou Wei was accused by industry peers; after being acquitted, he shifted focus to robotics

Lodog Robotics (01236)
Listed on the first day, CEO Zhou Wei recently gave an exclusive interview to domestic media, stating that the core essence of corporate growth lies in the growth of the founders themselves. Reflecting on ten years of entrepreneurship, the biggest challenge faced was constantly learning how to build teams and improve organizational capabilities.

Zhou Wei’s entrepreneurial journey has been extremely arduous, having been accused of trade secret infringement and becoming a “fugitive,” and was also detained between 2018 and 2019. Fortunately, due to insufficient evidence and failure to meet prosecution conditions, Zhou Wei and co-founders Guo Gaihua and Yan Xuekai were acquitted and released.

Laxing World once won the top sales of balance scooters, and founder Zhou Wei became a wanted fugitive?

Zhou Wei founded Laxing World Technology Co., Ltd. early on, focusing on balance scooters, electric unicycles, and robotics. At that time, American Segway’s products sold for tens of thousands of RMB. Laxing World, through independent R&D, launched smarter balance scooters that were more compact and sold for only a few thousand RMB, quickly opening up the mainland consumer market.

Around 2014, Laxing World received multiple rounds of funding, including from Sequoia Capital, and announced in December that it had completed a 100 million RMB Series B funding round. In just two years since its founding, the company topped the balance scooter sales charts and exported products to over 50 countries and regions worldwide. Zhou Wei, who was only 29 that year, was selected as one of Forbes China’s “30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs in 2015.”

However, subsequent developments took a dramatic turn. Zhou Wei was reported by industry competitors for alleged “trade secret infringement.” Over a period of 33 months, the company was repeatedly investigated, assets frozen, and Zhou Wei suddenly became a wanted online fugitive, causing the company’s operations to grind to a halt.

Later, three founders of Laxing World were taken away by police one after another. After court proceedings, in 2019, Zhou Wei, co-founder Guo Gaihua, and Yan Xuekai were acquitted due to insufficient evidence and failure to meet prosecution conditions.

Visual perception technology origins, providing sensing fundamentals for the robotics industry, large potential in lawn mower robot market

Lodog Robotics was established as early as January 2017, initially focusing on core robot components like laser radar, with an emphasis on visual perception technology, and decided to develop sensor technology in-house across the entire stack. During Zhou Wei’s absence, co-founder Guo Gaihua led the company to launch its first-generation laser radar and SLAM algorithms in 2018, applied in robotic vacuum cleaners and other fields. In 2019, they released high-precision solid-state linear laser radar.

According to the prospectus, Lodog Robotics mainly provides visual perception products and lawn mower robots, with multiple intelligent robot laser radar products. The company also views full-robot intelligence as another growth direction, entering the smart lawn mower robot scene.

Zhou Wei told domestic media that when Lodog Robotics was founded, they found that robots’ perception capabilities were too weak, and their problem-solving ability was limited, “they needed very precise instructions to execute.” He pointed out that the company aims to provide fundamental capabilities for the robotics industry—robots’ ability to recognize and understand the physical world—hence decided to focus on sensor-related perception technology development.

Lawn mower robots are expected to account for 18.3% of Lodog Robotics’ revenue in 2025, with gross margins surpassing sensor business, mainly targeting European and American garden maintenance needs. Zhou Wei explained that the lawn mower robot market’s potential has not yet fully exploded. Currently, various lawn mowers sell 25 to 30 million units annually, and lawn mower robots have a very good chance to replace these categories.