Zhejiang University-originated entrepreneurs are rushing for Hong Kong stock IPO, five key highlights in the Agile Robotics prospectus
On June 15, the intelligent robot company SEER (06106.HK) started its share offering. The offering price is HK$101.60 per share, with 50 shares per lot, and its market value is HK$1.1227 billion.
SEER first submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in May 2025. After it expired six months later, the company resubmitted it in November of the same year and finally passed the hearing in June this year. SEER is going public in Hong Kong as a special technology company under Chapter 18C. It is expected to be listed and ring the bell on June 24. China International Capital Corporation is the sole sponsor, and China Merchants Securities International is the overall coordinator.
Interestingly, the core barrier of this company lies not in the robots themselves but in the "brains" of the robots - the controllers. According to CIC, in terms of sales volume, SEER's robot controllers rank first globally and in China, with a market share of 24.8% and 45.2% respectively. A company that "sells brains" is going public. After a thorough analysis of the 713 - page prospectus by Yingke, it is found that there are five highlights of SEER:
Is it about to turn profitable? The "0.6% loss rate" hides two mysteries.
Let's first look at the revenue. SEER's revenues from 2023 to 2025 were RMB 249 million, RMB 339 million, and RMB 442 million respectively, with a three - year compound growth rate of 33.2%, all above 30% each year. In terms of losses, the adjusted net loss narrowed from RMB 20.91 million in 2023 to RMB 2.87 million in 2025, and the adjusted net loss rate was only 0.6%. It seems that the company is about to turn profitable.
However, there is the first mystery here. The "adjusted" is based on the "non - IFRS" basis, excluding items such as share - based payments. If we return to the statement basis, SEER had a loss of RMB 47.076 million in 2025, RMB 42.308 million in 2024, and RMB 47.704 million in 2023. Although the loss is indeed narrowing, it is far from turning profitable. The actual net loss rate in 2025 was 10.7%.
The second mystery, which is more interesting, is hidden in the net assets. On the surface, SEER's net assets at the end of 2023 and 2024 were positive (RMB 108 million and RMB 98 million). However, the prospectus shows that if the redemption rights of the pre - IPO investors were not terminated in May 2025 and were accounted for as financial liabilities, the net assets in these two years would actually be - RMB 272 million and - RMB 320 million.
In other words, SEER's "positive net assets" result was achieved through a pre - listing clause. It is worth mentioning that the termination of such gambling clauses is almost a standard practice for Hong Kong IPOs.
In terms of cash flow, the net cash outflow from operating activities in 2025 was RMB 27.798 million, which has been negative for two consecutive years (the net cash outflow in 2024 was RMB 24.962 million), while it was a net inflow of RMB 10.316 million in 2023. At the same time, the accounts receivable turnover days increased from 61 days to 111 days, indicating that the collection of payments is slowing down. As a "sales champion", it seems that the company has not yet been able to generate stable cash flow on its own.
It ranks first globally in controller sales but relies on selling complete machines to boost revenue.
Why is the revenue increasing while the profit is still in the red? We need to break down the business to find out.
SEER's revenue is composed of four parts: robots, controllers, software, and accessories. In 2025, robots contributed 67.9% of the revenue (RMB 299 million), but the gross profit margin was only 38.4%. The real high - margin products are the controllers (RMB 85.165 million in revenue, accounting for 19.3%, with a gross profit margin of 79.8%) and software (accounting for 5.3%, with a gross profit margin of 89.3%).
That is to say, SEER holds the position of "number one in the world in controller sales". The gross profit margins of controllers and software are nearly 80% - 90%, contributing most of the profits. However, it is the complete robots with a gross profit margin of less than 40% that support the bulk of the revenue. After calculation, it is found that in 2025, the company sold 7,924 controllers at an average price of about RMB 10,700 and 3,168 robots at an average price of about RMB 94,700. The controller is the part with the highest technical content and gross profit, and the complete machine is more like a carrier to "sell the controller together".
Therefore, SEER's strategy is to use its globally leading "brains" to attract customers to the platform (which is compatible with more than 400 components and more than 2,000 robot models) and then increase sales volume through complete machines. The advantage is strong customer stickiness - the proportion of old customers increased from 32.3% to 44.9%, and 60% of the revenue comes from repeat customers. The cost is that the more complete machines are sold, the more the gross profit is diluted, resulting in a structure of "increasing revenue but not increasing profit". Moreover, 82.7% of the revenue comes from the Chinese mainland, and the geographical distribution is not diversified.
It raised RMB 280 million in four rounds of financing, and GLP, Ecovacs, and IDG are the biggest winners.
Before going public, SEER completed four rounds of financing, namely Series A, Series A+, Series B, and Series C, raising a total of about RMB 283 million.
Looking at the financing history, it is a ladder of valuation:
Series A financing of RMB 63.9873 million (November 2020): Institutions such as GLP Yinshan and Ecovacs entered the market. The post - investment valuation was RMB 300 million, and the adjusted cost per share was about RMB 3.72, a discount of 95.79% compared with the current offering price. Among them, GLP Yinshan invested RMB 28.998 million, including a loan of RMB 19.4867 million; Ecovacs invested RMB 10.3419 million, including a loan of RMB 4.8527 million.
Series A+ financing of RMB 32 million (April 2021): IDG made a full investment. The post - investment valuation was RMB 600 million, and the adjusted cost per share was RMB 7.18, a discount of 91.88%. The increase in valuation was mainly due to the launch of the lifting robot, the robot controller SRC - 2000, and the intelligent forklift.
Series B financing of RMB 116 million (January 2022): New investors such as SAIF and Haolan joined. The post - investment valuation was RMB 2.4 billion, and the adjusted cost per share was RMB 25.64, a discount of 71.01%. Among them, SAIF invested RMB 80 million, Haolan invested RMB 30 million, and IDG made an additional investment of RMB 6.667 million. The increase in valuation was mainly due to three points: (1) The formal large - scale expansion of overseas business; (2) The official launch of a full range of software products (including the MWMS warehouse - distribution integrated system, RDS, and Meta series visualization software), and the complete establishment of the software product matrix; (3) The high - speed growth of revenue, fully verifying the potential of commercialization.
Series C financing of RMB 70 million (April 2025): SAIF and Hongtai participated. The post - investment valuation was RMB 3.27 billion, and the adjusted cost per share was RMB 32.70, a discount of 63.03%. Among them, SAIF made an additional investment of RMB 20 million, and Hongtai invested RMB 50 million. The increase in valuation was mainly due to two points: (1) The launch of the forklift - specific controller SRC - 3000FS, the SRC - 2000 - F(S) robot controller suitable for forklifts, and the SRC - 880 robot controller for the lifting robot, and the simultaneous release of a new type of tote - handling robot, a cleaning robot, and the 3D robot visualization software Meta - Map Pro; (2) The continuous high - speed growth of revenue, continuously highlighting the commercial value.
Who is the biggest winner in this IPO? If we only look at the investment cost, it must be the Series A investors. The cost per share is RMB 3.72, and the current offering price is HK$101.6, a discount of more than 95%. Institutions such as GLP (Zhuhai Yinshan, holding 12.90% after the issuance), Ecovacs (5.83%), and IDG, which made bets in 2020, have book profits in multiples of twenty.
It is worth mentioning that after the IPO, the founder, Zhao Yue, still holds about 47.86% of the equity (52.89% before the issuance).
With a PS of 22 times, it is the most expensive new robot stock in the Hong Kong stock market.
Is the valuation expensive? By comparison, SEER's offering market value is HK$1.1227 billion, equivalent to about RMB 9.7 billion. With a revenue of RMB 442 million in 2025, the static PS is about 22 times. Since the company has a net loss and the P/E ratio is not applicable, this is a typical "pricing based on revenue scale and growth potential".
What level is 22 times? By comparing horizontally with its peers: Geek+ (02590.HK), the world's number one in AMR, has a price - to - sales ratio of about 9 times, and Estun Automation (002747.SZ), the number one in industrial robots in China, has a ratio of only 4 - 5 times. SEER is the most expensive among the three, without a doubt.
What supports this premium is its nearly 48% gross profit margin (the highest in the industry) and its leading position in the controller market. However, the risk lies here too - the 22 - times price - to - sales ratio highly depends on whether the growth rate of over 30% and the high gross profit can continue. Once one of them falters, the pressure to digest the valuation will be great. Among the cornerstone investors (8 in total, subscribing for 43.34% and locked for 6 months), there are Hillhouse HHLRA and GF Fund, which is at an upper - middle level, but there are no international sovereign funds or top - tier long - term investors, so it is not a "top - notch" lineup. In addition, the public offering only accounts for 9.5%, and the cornerstone investors have locked up 4.12%. The tradable shares at the initial stage of listing are very thin - a thin float is a double - edged sword, which may boost the stock price but also magnify the fluctuations.
A Zhejiang University academic who won the World Cup twice, and his "Zhejiang University + Ecovacs" team
Finally, we still need to focus on the people. Zhao Yue, the founder, chairman, and CEO of SEER, is a typical technology - oriented founder. He holds a bachelor's degree in Electronic Information Engineering and a master's degree in Control Science and Engineering from Zhejiang University. He led the Zhejiang University team to win the RoboCup robot soccer World Cup championships in 2013 and 2014. He led the research and development of the SRC series of controllers, holds 43 invention patents, and was named the most influential alumnus of Zhejiang University. (Some reports say that he once enrolled in the eight - year medical program at Zhejiang University's Zhu Kezhen College as an undergraduate and later switched from medicine to intelligent control.)
This is also Zhao Yue's second entrepreneurial attempt. The core team first founded Shanghai SEER Robotics in 2015. Due to differences in the shareholders' concepts, the company was liquidated and deregistered in 2020. In the same year, they started SEER from scratch and took over the fixed assets, inventory, and some intangible assets of SEER Robotics for about RMB 6.6 million.
SEER's team is also composed entirely of "Zhejiang University alumni": Ye Yangsheng, the co - founder and head of product R & D, graduated from Zhejiang University with a bachelor's degree in control and a master's degree in industrial design; Wang Qun, the head of the product department, holds a bachelor's and master's degree in electrical engineering from Zhejiang University. In addition, Ding Xia, the executive director and vice - president, is Zhao Yue's spouse and once served as the investment director and accelerator general manager of Ecovacs (603486).
Conclusion
SEER's story is about a technology company that has achieved the world's number one in "robot brains" sales and is standing at a commercialization turning point: the adjusted loss is approaching the break - even point, the high gross profit of controllers and software is its barrier, and the market (the global industrial intelligent robot market was about RMB 2.86 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach RMB 198.5 billion in 2030) is large enough.
However, the turning point does not mean that it has already passed the bend - it is still in the red, the cash is still flowing out, the gross profit of the complete machines is low, and the tradable shares are thin. The 22 - times price - to - sales ratio has already factored in a lot of