Once-$2B AI unicorn DeepBlue faces unpaid wages as subsidiary enters bankruptcy
创业邦 · wechat · 2026-10-20
An investigation by AI Story Lab details how DeepBlue Technology, an AI unicorn once valued at 14 billion yuan, fell into prolonged unpaid wages and a subsidiary's bankruptcy liquidation.
Unpaid wages: In May 2026 a Shanghai court accepted the bankruptcy liquidation of subsidiary DeepBlue Robotics (Shanghai); by September the administrator listed over 23 million yuan in employee claims covering 102 staff. Its Changzhou unit was previously ordered to pay 718,300 yuan owed to 30 workers for May-October 2023. Multiple employees went nearly a year without pay, relying on credit cards; one won a mediated 35,000 yuan settlement that had not been paid as of publication.
Company trajectory: Founded in 2012 and pivoted to AI in 2017, DeepBlue expanded from biometric payment and unmanned retail to Panda Bus, robots, digital immortality, LLMs and agents. It raised more than ten rounds totaling over 700 million yuan disclosed, backed by CICC Capital, Yunfeng Fund and Greenland Financial. Headcount on social insurance fell from 558 in 2019 to 55 in 2024 and 42 in 2025.
Pivots: The MetaMind digital-avatar social product changed direction repeatedly and continued as the Haojimao memory app in January 2025. An LG disinfection-robot order and a 500-unit Panda Bus procurement deal never became stable businesses. The company says it is shutting down long-loss-making legacy units while core parent operations remain stable.
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