On October 16, Li Auto issued an announcement stating that its indirectly wholly-owned chip subsidiary, Shanghai Mahe Xin Technology Co., Ltd., has signed a first-round equity financing agreement. The financing amount is CNY 1.625 billion, with a post-investment valuation of CNY 16.63 billion. This round is led by Hangzhou Jingtao, Lanchi Ventures, and Huaye Tiancheng, with Qiji Chuangtan participating in the investment. In addition, Hangzhou Jingtao and its affiliated funds have been granted an additional subscription right of up to CNY 500 million. If fully exercised, the post-investment valuation of Mahe Xin Technology will reach CNY 17.1 billion.
Data shows that Mahe Xin Technology was established on August 12, 2026, with a registered capital of CNY 500 million. The company is registered in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone and is wholly owned by Shanghai Mahe Zhixin Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Li Auto. From its establishment to the completion of the first round of financing and reaching a valuation exceeding CNY 10 billion, Li Auto took only a little over 60 days.
Financing Structure: Li Auto Contributes the Majority, External Capital Follows
According to the announcement, this round of subscription consists of two parts: the controlling shareholder Shanghai Mahe Zhixin subscribes to the newly added registered capital with CNY 1 billion; Hangzhou Jingtao, Lanchi Ventures, and Huaye Tiancheng each invest CNY 200 million; and Qiji Chuangtan invests CNY 25 million. The external investors contribute a total of CNY 625 million. The subscription price is CNY 23.35 per unit of registered capital, corresponding to a pre-investment valuation of CNY 15 billion and a post-investment valuation of approximately CNY 16.63 billion.
The additional subscription right obtained by Hangzhou Jingtao is the key variable that drives the valuation jump from CNY 16.6 billion to CNY 17.1 billion. This right must be exercised before December 31, 2026. If fully exercised, Li Auto's shareholding in Mahe Xin Technology will be further diluted from 76.24% to approximately 74.01%, but it will still maintain a controlling position, and the financials of the chip business will continue to be consolidated into the group's statements.
Mahe Xin Technology has simultaneously launched a two-tier equity incentive plan: the authorized limit for the employee incentive plan is 15% of the expanded registered capital, the limit for the senior management plan is 5%, and an additional 3% is reserved for directors or consultants. This arrangement is intended to retain leverage in the talent competition for the chip team.
Mahe M100: The World's First Dynamic Dataflow AI Chip
Supporting the CNY 17.1 billion valuation of Mahe Xin Technology is a chip that is already well underway.
The Mahe M100 adopts a 5nm automotive-grade process, delivers a single-chip computing power of 1,280 TOPS, and is equipped with 8-channel LPDDR5X memory with a peak bandwidth of 273 GB/s. Its most core differentiation lies in its architecture: it is the world's first dynamic dataflow AI chip, rather than following the industry's mainstream von Neumann or processing-in-memory architectures. Li Auto disclosed that the chip's actual operational efficiency exceeds 82%.
The architecture paper for the Mahe M100 was accepted by the Industry Track of ISCA 2026, the top international conference on computer architecture, making Li Auto the first enterprise in the automotive industry to publish a paper in this track. For an automaker that started with extended-range SUVs, this demonstrates the technical caliber of its chip team even more than the computing power figures.
The Mahe M100 entered mass production and was installed in vehicles in May 2026, making its debut in the all-new Li Auto L9 Livis, and was subsequently delivered with models such as the L9 and L8. From architecture design to factory pre-installation, Li Auto has completed a full-chain closed loop.
From 'In-House Use' to 'External Supply': The Business Model Turning Point for Automaker Chips
The announcement shows that the funds from the first round of financing for Mahe Xin Technology will support the R&D and commercialization of chip and domain controller businesses, advance product supply and cooperation for external customers, and especially expand market opportunities in non-automotive fields. In short, the goal of Mahe Xin Technology is not only to serve Li Auto itself but also to become a chip company that supplies externally.
According to the official delivery data published by Li Auto on October 1, 2026, Li Auto delivered exactly 31,817 new vehicles in September 2026, and the historical cumulative delivery volume reached 1,833,651 units as of September 30. Although the shipment volume is not low, its effect on amortizing R&D and manufacturing costs is limited, which is far from sufficient to support the continuous iteration of advanced process chips. Therefore, introducing external capital and expanding external customers is not only a financial choice to share the high R&D investment but also a market means to verify the competitiveness of the chips.
Industry sources show that in addition to the Mahe M100, Li Auto's years of in-house R&D achievements—such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) modules and range extenders—are also being considered for external sales. Moving from 'vertical integration' to 'external technology supply,' Li Auto is attempting to transform its in-house hardware into business units with independent valuations.
Conclusion:
For Li Auto, the successful completion of the first round of financing by Mahe Xin Technology, and the expectation of achieving a post-investment valuation of up to CNY 17.1 billion, is indeed commendable. However, the announcement also indicates that Mahe Xin Technology has not yet generated operating revenue, there is a possibility that the additional subscription right will not be exercised, and the transaction still needs to meet multiple preconditions to be finalized. The CNY 17.1 billion valuation is built on the premise of 'assuming the subscription right is fully exercised,' leaving room for flexibility in the actual outcome.
For Mahe Xin Technology, a greater test lies in whether such a chip company incubated by Li Auto can win customer trust beyond the Li Auto brand. Competitors in the non-automotive field—NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Horizon Robotics, and even Huawei—each have mature ecosystems and customer relationships. Whether the 'dynamic dataflow' architecture of the Mahe M100 has a verifiable general advantage in energy efficiency needs to be answered by real purchases from third-party customers, rather than the installation data from Li Auto's own vehicle models.
Editor: Xinzhi Xun - Langke Jian