Accused of targeting local government industrial funds and allegedly using this to inflate its valuation, Chinese tech company "Dreame" reportedly has large sections of its office spaces lying idle, with executives actively looking for jobs externally.
According to Yicai, who combined business registration information, on-site visits, and interviews with several internal sources, in the past four months, executives from Dreame's car manufacturing brand "Starry Sky Project" have been intensively starting to job hunt externally, while the project team saw a wave of resignations and layoffs, leaving many office desks vacant.
Dreame Technology developed rapidly in the smart cleaning field and has risen to a leading position in the industry. At the end of August last year, Dreame's founder Yu Hao declared an ambition to build "the world's fastest car."
A year later, at the Suzhou site of Dreame's car project "Starry Sky Project," at least two-thirds of workstations were left idle, with no office supplies or signs of activity on the desks.
An internal employee revealed that layoffs in the Starry Sky Project began more than two months ago, "each round basically cut about 25%."
At its peak, Dreame officially announced that its car-making team numbered nearly a thousand people.
The report quoted Sheng Jinlong, General Manager of Suzhou Zhaorui Talent Management Consulting Co., Ltd., as saying that the large-scale layoffs at Starry Sky Project began in June. From that time, resumes from talents with Starry Sky Project experience started to flood job sites. Searching "Starry Sky Project Director" as a keyword on recruiting sites brings up more than 40 candidates, covering various departments and mostly around age 40.
In May this year, a well-known Chinese finance self-media published an article titled "Tsinghua Genius 'Collapses Old Man'" (internet slang meaning scammer), which went viral in China. The article claimed Yu Hao's network had thousands of companies keenly awaiting the first round of angel investment, while he set his sights on local government industrial funds, "inflating valuation in an unprecedented manner."
In early June, Yu Hao's Weibo was found to be muted. Several Chinese media outlets reported that one location in Jiangsu was reviewing companies within its jurisdiction that have collaborated with Dreame, including project content, overall scale, investment amounts, fiscal and state-owned capital investment, and current operational status.
On the other hand, according to Yonhap News Agency, Dreame Technology on Friday (August 21) held a brand launch event in Seoul, officially ramping up its brand promotion efforts in the Korean market.
Dreame entered the Korean market in 2023 and, after launching its robot vacuum, further expanded its product line to beauty and kitchen appliance sectors. Last year, Dreame had a 10.5% share of the global robot vacuum market, ranking third behind Chinese brands Roborock and Ecovacs.