Although the listing process is full of twists and turns, the brilliant performance of Shangtang technology after listing still gave investors a big surprise.
On January 4, Shangtang Technology (00020. HK) soared by nearly 20% during the session, and its total market value once exceeded HK $300 billion. Compared with the issue price of HK $3.85, Shangtang technology was listed for four trading days, with a maximum increase of 151%. As of the closing on the 4th, Shangtang technology closed at HK $8.2, up 5.8%, with a market value of HK $272.9 billion.
According to the prospectus, since 2018, the compound growth rate of Shangtang from 2018 to 2020 has reached 36.4%. In the first half of 2021, Shangtang's revenue increased from 861 million yuan in the same period in 2020 to 1.652 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 91.8%. The gross profit margin increased significantly from 56.5% in 2018 to 73.0% in the first half of 2021. The scale effect is obvious.
cornerstone investors have floating profits of about HK $4 billion
On December 30, 2021, Shangtang technology was successfully listed on the main board of the stock exchange of Hong Kong, completing the largest IPO in the field of artificial intelligence in the world.
The IPO process of Shangtang group can be described as twists and turns. After repeatedly exposing the listing rumors, Shangtang Group officially submitted the prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on August 27, 2021. However, in the key stage of IPO, the US Treasury included Shangtang group in the "list of non SDN Chinese military industrial complex enterprises" and implemented investment restrictions. At that time, Shangtang group urgently responded that the relevant allegations were groundless, reflecting a fundamental misunderstanding of the company, "scientific and technological development should not be affected by geopolitics." Meanwhile, Shangtang group is still committed to completing the global offering and listing as soon as possible.
On December 13 last year, Shangtang group announced that it would delay the global offering and listing. Only a week later, on December 20, Shangtang group announced the resumption of public offering, and the issuance scale, fund-raising amount and pricing range were consistent with those before.
It is worth noting that since shangtang-w was sought after by investors in the secondary market after its listing, the stock price has risen continuously, and the institutional investors behind it have also reaped huge floating profits.
The reporter of the Securities Times found that the list of cornerstone investors of Shangtang had changed, and the investment scale was increased to US $510 million. Among them, the mixed ownership reform fund initiated by China Chengtong, Guosheng overseas Hong Kong, Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Industry equity investment fund and SAIC Hong Kong remain unchanged. Shanghai Xuhui capital, Guotai Junan Securities Co.Ltd(601211) securities investment, Hong Kong Science and Technology Park venture capital fund, Xima ophthalmology and Taizhou culture and tourism are newly introduced.
According to the announcement of the offering price and allotment results disclosed by Shangtang technology, the nine institutional cornerstone investors subscribed for a total of US $511.6 million (Note: equivalent to about HK $4 billion), and the total number of allotted shares was about 1033 million. If calculated according to the latest share price of shangtang-w (HK $8.20), the latest market value of the allotted shares received by the above cornerstone investors was about HK $8.47 billion, The total floating profit of the nine cornerstone investors has exceeded HK $4 billion, with a floating profit of more than 100%.
In 2014, Professor Tang Xiaoou of the Chinese University of Hong Kong led the team to publish deepid series face recognition algorithms. In order to successfully commercialize the research results and create more commercial and social value, scientists officially founded Shangtang technology in October of that year, opening a new era of AI. After 7 years of development, Shangtang technology has developed into the AI software company with the highest income in Asia.
Innovation is related to the future and destiny of the country. As hard science and technology has become a national will strategy, we need to focus on hard science and technology research. Today, "hard technology" represented by artificial intelligence is becoming a new growth point of economic development. Hard core technology enterprises need long-term R & D investment and continuous accumulation to accumulate potential energy for high growth in the future. According to the prospectus data of Shangtang technology, from 2018 to 2020, the R & D expenditure of Shangtang technology was RMB 848 million, RMB 1916 million and RMB 2453 million respectively, accounting for 45.9%, 63.3% and 71.3% of the revenue in the same period respectively. In the first half of this year, the R & D expenditure of Shangtang technology was 1.77 billion yuan, accounting for 107.3% of the revenue. Shangtang also made it clear that 60% of the funds raised by the IPO are expected to be used for R & D.
venture capital institutions also have heavy positions
investment logic behind disassembly
Behind Shangtang technology, there are the top venture capital institutions, such as IDG capital, Chunhua capital, Softbank, Alibaba, Temasek, cornerstone capital, Songhe capital and so on.
Many institutions in Shenzhen have heavy positions. They discovered the "scientist" entrepreneurial team that was not very popular at that time in the early stage of its establishment. Starting from round B in 2016, cornerstone capital has invested heavily in Shangtang technology for three consecutive rounds. In the first round, it invested US $40 million, with a cumulative investment of hundreds of millions of US dollars. In the eyes of cornerstone capital, Shangtang technology is Huawei in China's artificial intelligence field. Its position in AI field is equivalent to Huawei's position in 5g field.
"The core value of Shangtang is that it provides the underlying, original and platform technology of the artificial intelligence industry, rather than simple application technology." This is the judgment of cornerstone capital.
In terms of disassembly, there are three key words.
One is "bottom technology". Shangtang technology researches and solves the basic problems of artificial intelligence, creates the basic facilities of artificial intelligence, provides support for other applied research, and fundamentally promotes the development of the industry.
The second is "original". In many cutting-edge science and technology fields, Chinese enterprises still play the role of imitators and followers. However, unlike Shangtang technology, it is an industry leader. Like Microsoft, Google and meta, it is at the forefront of artificial intelligence research.
The third is "platform type". Shangtang technology has real "Ai +" capability. Its large artificial intelligence device can realize the large-scale implementation of artificial intelligence efficiently and at low cost, so as to enable all industries. With the breakthrough of underlying technology, business application scenarios will gradually open. This development process is not linear, but exponential. For example, in the early stage, when the error rate of visual recognition technology was at the level of 1%, it may only be applied to a few detection fields with low accuracy requirements; When it is reduced to one millionth, it may be used in subway entry and exit stations; If we reduce it further, for example, by one hundred million, all the extremely difficult application scenarios, including autopilot and metauniverse, will be opened.
As the core technology of the fourth industrial revolution, artificial intelligence is a must for strategists. Therefore, China and the United States have raised it to a very high strategic level. With the dual influence of scientific and technological progress and policy guidance, the growth space of the industry is very considerable. With the gradual opening of trillion level application markets such as smart cars and meta universe, the potential of the artificial intelligence industry will be realized step by step.
Shangtang technology is the leading company with the strongest comprehensive strength in the field of artificial intelligence in China and even Asia.
Songhe capital also invested in Shangtang technology in 2017. Talking about the investment in Shangtang technology, Li Wei, founding partner of Songhe capital, believes that: "At the beginning of Shangtang's founding, AI was still a field that did not attract much attention, but in just a few years, the changes of artificial intelligence to various industries have been fully launched. Shangtang technology is one of the most innovative artificial intelligence enterprises in China, and its R & D ability has been recognized all over the world. Shangtang's characteristics of innovation leading, daring and sustainable development are in line with Songhe capital's investment philosophy It is believed that Shangtang technology will have a far-reaching impact on China's artificial intelligence. In the future, we will also witness the listing of more new products of Shangtang science and technology and the wisdom crystallization of Shangtang science and technology scientists grinding a sword in seven years. "
The listing of Shangtang is also a new chapter for Songhe capital. Through the underlying logic of investing in Shangtang, Songhe capital has summarized a set of hard technology investment methods, that is, focusing on the underlying original technology. Based on this method, Songhe has successively invested in various enterprises upstream and downstream of the AI industrial chain, such as Bi Ren technology, Si Mou technology and other enterprises, and improved its investment layout in the field of innovative technology.
(Securities Times)
