Hu Zhenyu, the founder of Nut Projection, has now become a "lao Lai" among employees.The reason was that on September 8, some media revealed that Hu Zhenyu, the founder of Nut Projection, was dismissed by the board of directors. Later, Hu Zhenyu himself responded to the news, saying that he "was just kicked out." That night, Nut Projection issued a statement stating that Hu Zhenyu resigned as chairman of the company due to personal health reasons and remained as a director of the company.

It is reported that Hu Zhenyu’s resignation as chairman of the company is related to his VR entrepreneurial project. Hu Zhenyu established a VR headset entrepreneurial project in Shanghai around 2022. The main body of the company is Shanghai Jinglan Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Jinglan").The company started laying off employees due to poor management and currently owes about 6 million in wages.. Hu Zhenyu said that he would sell Nut shares to solve the problem of unpaid wages.

A resigned employee of Shanghai Jinglan told ifeng.com that after news of the dismissal was revealed, Hu Zhenyu and another executive severely reprimanded employees in the group, saying that this negative impact had seriously affected the company's mergers and acquisitions, and then they both quit the group."They also say that we are immoral. We have been owed wages for almost a year. We have made various promises to pay next month and then broken them."


Picture｜Screenshot of Hu Zhenyu chatting with Shanghai Jinglan employees

The last time Nut Projection attracted public attention was the "war of words" with its competitor Jimi Technology. Behind this disgraceful fight, the projection industry has seen sluggish growth, and brands have fallen into stock competition. The focus of this storm is:Is Hu Zhenyu an entrepreneur who abdicated to preserve the reputation of Nut Projection, or a "liar" who refuses to repay his debts? Will the founder’s negative salary arrears affect the IPO of Nut Projection?

01. Evidence was exposed by employees who were owed wages

Accused Hu Zhenyu of being an "old rascal"

At an entrepreneur sharing meeting in 2022, a boss wearing a black shirt talked about his journey of starting a business. From nothing to leading the industry, his impassioned speech received thunderous applause from the audience. This speaker is none other than Hu Zhenyu, the founder of Nut Projection.


Picture | Hu Zhenyu, founder of Nut Projection

Hu Zhenyu told the audience that he has a background in software writing and developed a map-type software related to highways when he was in college. In 2011, he saw the opportunity to officially enter the smart projection industry and established Shenzhen Huole Technology Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huole Technology"); in 2015, Huole Technology launched the nut brand, which later developed into the industry's leading brand.

When Hu Zhenyu started his own business again, his experience and his brand Nut Projection were used as recruitment information for the new company, Shanghai Jinglan.

In April 2022, Yu Min saw on the job search platform that Nut Projection was recruiting algorithm engineers, so she applied for the position. Later, she discovered that the main body of the company was Shanghai Jinglan.Does not match the recruitment information. In order to dispel his concerns, HR repeatedly emphasized during communication that this company was founded by Hu Zhenyu, and the new VR project team also came from nuts. There are many job seekers in a similar situation to Yu Min.

Although the recruitment information was different from the main body of the company, many people still joined Shanghai Jinglan due to the celebrity endorsement of Nut Projection and Hu Zhenyu, as well as the high salary. A resigned employee told ifeng.com that when the company was developing at its fastest, the number of employees reached about 150.

The employee said that Shanghai Jinglan Company has stopped operating. The reasons for the failure include the inability to produce products and a broken capital chain. ShouldThe company has problems with salary arrears and payment arrears to suppliers.. "Salary arrears began in October 2022, and it was not until February this year that the salary for October last year was repaid. In April and May this year, wages were owed for half a month each month. During this period, the company also experienced two layoffs, and the Shanghai office building has long been empty."

Tianyancha APP shows that Shanghai Jinglan was established in January 2022 with a registered capital of 30 million yuan. The legal representative is Wu Zhan, and its parent company is Shenzhen Blue Whale Century Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shenzhen Blue Whale"). In February 2022, Shenzhen Blue Whale changed its industrial and commercial information, and Hu Zhenyu was added as chairman; in March 2022, Hu Zhenyu withdrew from the position of chairman of Shenzhen Blue Whale and was replaced by Xu Liang. The company's legal representative is currently Pi Zhentao.

Judging from the equity relationship, Hu Zhenyu has no connection with Shanghai Jinglan and Shenzhen Blue Whale.

But Yu Min said that Hu Zhenyu has always been the actual controller of these two companies. "His withdrawal from the chairmanship of Shenzhen Blue Whale is to remove himself from the program, because our labor arbitration can only target Shanghai Jinglan and its legal person. Since Shanghai Jinglan has no property in its name, the final execution will not allow the money to be returned at all."

At present, Shanghai Jinglan has been listed by the court as a restricted high-consumption enterprise, and the company has 5 pieces of information on persons subject to execution.

"Last year, Hu Zhenyu also reassured everyone, saying that the problem would be solved when the funds were in place. Now it's a round of arbitration, and there are no assets to enforce, and the boss has been ruined a long time ago." Another employee who resigned said that Hu Zhenyu had promised many times in the layoff group that he would find a way to solve the problem of unpaid wages, and said that he sold the nuts to repay wages, but now he has directly exited the group chat, and employees in the group who are owed wages cannot contact him.

Ifeng Technology has exclusively learned of an internal corporate document of Shenzhen Blue Whale, which is the appointment letter for the Shenzhen Blue Whale Double Eleven project. The member list shows that Hu Zhenyu is the chairman of the company, and the document is dated September 30, 2022.In other words, Hu Zhenyu, who resigned from the position of chairman according to the industrial and commercial information, is still the actual person in charge of the company.


Picture｜Shenzhen Blue Whale Enterprise Internal Documents

Yu Min told us that many senior executives from Shenzhen Blue Whale and Shanghai Jinglan are from the Nut team. Among them, Li Ye, the recruitment director of Shanghai Jinglan, is still working at Nut. A piece of company invoice information he provided showed that the payee email address of Shenzhen Blue Whale was actually the email address used by Nut Company employees.


Figure｜Invoicing information of Shenzhen Blue Whale Company

Ifeng Technology asked the Nut Projection Brand Public Relations Department for verification regarding Hu Zhenyu’s unpaid wages and the company’s connection. As of press time, there has been no response.

02. Wage arrears, quarrels, and being taken off work

Is Nut Projection’s IPO still stable?

Among the layoffs group, Hu Zhenyu said that he resigned as chairman of Nut Projection because public opinion about unpaid wages affected the company.


Picture｜Chat records between Hu Zhenyu and employees “asking for salary”

Late at night on September 8, Nut Projection’s official Weibo issued a statement stating that Hu Zhenyu resigned as chairman of the company due to personal health reasons, but still served as a director of the company to guide the company’s strategic direction.

Judging from the accounts of both parties, Hu Zhenyu and Nut Projection tried their best to distance themselves from each other to prevent Nut Projection from being affected by wage arrears lawsuits and public opinion.

According to Lei Di, Hu Zhenyu said in another interview that the reason for his dismissal was that the investors wanted to sell the company. "As the founder, he obviously did not want the company to be sold. The investors' behavior at this time really helped Jimi."

Nut Projection has not yet responded to whether Hu Zhenyu was kicked out of the company by investors.Behind the founder's salary arrears, Nut Project has continued negative disputes, which has also added uncertainty to the company's listing.

As the company's strategy maker and management core, the founder's every move will have a significant impact on the company. An investor told Ifeng.com that in the domestic venture capital market, a founder is often strongly tied to the company. His personal experience and work style will affect investors' judgment, and the negative public opinion of the founder will also affect investor confidence.

Taking a closer look at the past history of the domestic Internet, there are many similar cases. In September 2018, after the Mingzhou sexual assault case of Liu Qiangdong, founder and chairman of JD.com Group, was exposed, JD.com’s stock price continued to fall. In just half a year, JD.com’s share price fell by 40%, and its market value evaporated by US$28 billion (RMB 191.2 billion).

The resignation of the founder of Nut Projection was turbulent, involving his 6 million salary arrears. Although Hu Zhenyu himself distanced himself from the relationship at the level of industrial and commercial information, the subsequent public opinion impact may really, as he said, "affect Nut Projection."

Tianyancha APP shows that Hu Zhenyu is still the largest shareholder of Huole Technology (Nut Projection), with a shareholding ratio of 13.62%; Xunxing Investment (Chongqing) Co., Ltd., OPPO, holds 10.47%, and is the second largest shareholder; the third largest shareholder is Alibaba Network Technology Co., Ltd., holding 6.68%; Zhuhai Ruiyan Management Consulting, IDG Capital, holds 5.83%, ranking fourth. In addition, there are small and medium-sized shareholders such as Hunan Shengli and Dachen Venture Capital.

at present,Nut Projection has completed nearly 1 billion in Pre-IPO financing and entered the sprint stage of listing. Its competitor Jimi Technology will be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in March 2021.


Picture｜Source network

In addition to the controversy over the founder's unpaid wages, the company has been plagued by negative news in the past two years, with news of "products being cracked down", "management disputes" and "industry wars" etc. coming out one after another. The Sky Eye Check information shows,Huole Technology (i.e. Nut Projection) currently has 110 court announcements and 55 legal proceedings. The cases include online shopping contract disputes, product liability disputes, etc.

In 2021, the Beijing Internet Court pronounced a verdict on a commodity shopping contract dispute. In this case, "professional anti-counterfeiter" Wang Hai found that the brightness and contrast of the G3 projector in the Nut flagship store were not up to standard, and pointed out that some products of Huole Technology (i.e. Nut Projection) had false propaganda, exaggerated product performance, unfair competition and other problems. In the end, Wang Hai won the dispute and was awarded a compensation of 31,600 yuan.

In June this year, Hu Zhenyu lost the case of defaming his subordinates. According to the court announcement, Hu Zhenyu made Hu Zhonglei’s criminal remarks in a group called “Nuts Domestic Channel Partners” without any factual basis. The remarks were obviously defamatory. Public information shows that Hu Zhonglei was the head of the domestic sales department of Nut Laser TV.

The challenges faced by Nut Projection on the market do not stop there. Currently, affected by weak electronic consumption, the overall sales of smart projection products are declining, which has a greater impact on brands such as XGIMI and Nuts in the mid-to-high-end market.

According to the "China Smart Projector Retail Market Monthly Tracking" report by Luotu Technology, the online market sales of smart projectors in March 2023 were 285,000 units, a year-on-year decrease of 6.1% and a month-on-month decrease of 1.9%. According to Jimi Technology's financial report, the company's operating income in the first half of 2023 fell 20.1% year-on-year to 1.627 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was approximately 92.73 million yuan, a year-on-year decline of 65.58%.

Amid the industry downturn, in the first half of this year, the two major domestic projection brands Jimi and Nuts engaged in a war of words on social platforms that attracted attention. The Economic Observer once pointed out that the overall market growth of projectors has slowed down, putting increasing pressure on domestic leading brands. Brands should improve their product capabilities and guide the healthy development of the industry.

After Hu Zhenyu is "out", can Nut Projection stabilize the core management and sprint to the market?

(At the request of the interviewer, Yu Min is a pseudonym in this article)