"Instant revenue settlement" underpins an IPO

"Instant income settlement" - behind these four words lies a business that generates an annual revenue of 2.4 billion yuan.

In June 2026, Hangzhou Lingka Technology Co., Ltd. submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The joint sponsors are CICC and SPDB International. This company, which started from part - time job recruitment for college students and is now the largest flexible employment platform in China, is about to enter the capital market.

Thirteen years ago, 23 - year - old Deng Jianbo founded Lingka Technology with a registered capital of 30,000 yuan. Now, the peak daily number of "check - ins" has exceeded 100,000. Its annual revenue soared from 460 million yuan in 2023 to 2.44 billion yuan in 2025, more than quintupling in three years.

Many people may not expect that a seemingly "ordinary" project like flexible employment can bring extremely high returns. Since its establishment, Lingka Technology has raised funds seven times. Even before going public, the early investors have already achieved an 88 - fold return.

A Trillion - Dollar Market: The Golden Age of Flexible Employment

The flexible employment market where Lingka Technology operates is experiencing a structural explosion.

According to data from CIC Consulting, the scale of the flexible employment market in China increased from 780.2 billion yuan in 2020 to 1.7675 trillion yuan in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 17.8%. It is estimated that this figure will reach 3.8766 trillion yuan by 2030.

The driving factors are not just a passing trend. The proportion of China's tertiary industry in GDP has been continuously increasing. The employment demand in the service industry is naturally characterized by high frequency, volatility, and seasonality. Restaurants face the pressure of high - turnover during lunch and dinner peaks, the retail industry experiences a surge in employment demand during holidays and promotional seasons, and hotels have different employment needs between peak and off - peak seasons. The traditional fixed employment model is inadequate in these scenarios. Enterprises need a human resources "tap" that can be "turned on and used immediately and turned off when done."

Meanwhile, the maturity of technological infrastructure has made all this possible. Internet platforms, remote collaboration technologies, AI algorithms, and big - data analysis capabilities have significantly reduced the information asymmetry between enterprises and flexible workers. Platforms like Lingka Technology act as connectors and enablers.

More importantly, changes in population and employment concepts are reshaping the labor market. Generation Z is becoming the main force in the job market. They value more the autonomy in time, location, and task arrangement. "Gig work is not the absence of a job but another way of life." Coupled with the shrinking labor supply due to population aging, flexible employment has become an important means to fill the labor gap.

The policy level is also increasing support. In December 2025, the State Council issued a report stating that flexible employment and new forms of employment have become important channels for Chinese workers to increase their income. Subsequently, a series of support policies were introduced, including the employment - priority strategy and guidelines for the construction of the gig market.

This is a market with a trillion - dollar scale and structural dividends, and Lingka Technology is right at the center of this track.

Instant Income Settlement: Disrupting the Flexible Employment Market

The story of Lingka Technology began in 2013. At that time, Deng Jianbo, who was still a college student, noticed the pain points in the part - time job market for college students, such as information asymmetry, arbitrary fees charged by intermediaries, and lack of guarantee for wage settlement. So he founded a part - time job recruitment platform named "Qingtuan She."

In 2014, Qingtuan She was launched, positioning itself as "a technology - driven flexible employment recruitment platform" to help enterprises and students achieve precise matching. In the same year, the predecessor of Lingka Technology was officially established.

In the following 10 years, Qingtuan She gradually grew into the largest flexible employment recruitment platform in China. As of the end of 2025, the number of registered corporate customers was nearly 2 million, and the number of registered users was nearly 57 million.

However, the real explosion of Lingka Technology came from the "Flexible Worker Check - in" business launched in 2019.

Different from the "light matching" model of Qingtuan She, the Flexible Worker Check - in is a one - stop flexible employment solution that covers the entire life cycle of flexible worker recruitment, scheduling, check - in management, insurance procurement, and income settlement. Its killer feature - "instant income settlement" - allows flexible workers to receive their pay immediately after work, which is a pioneering move in the industry.

This feature hits the pain points of a large number of gig workers - many people do gig work just to get paid on the same day. It also transformed Lingka Technology from a simple recruitment platform into a deeply involved flexible employment service provider.

Judging from the data, the explosive growth of the Flexible Worker Check - in business is amazing:

The peak daily number of check - ins: Just over 100 in 2020, exceeding 13,000 in 2023, reaching 38,000 in 2024, 76,000 in 2025, and exceeding 100,000 in 2026.

Corporate customers: In 2025, the Flexible Worker Check - in service was provided to 319 corporate customers, including five of the top ten catering companies in China, five of the top ten retail companies in China, and four of the top five global hotel groups.

The key customer retention rate is 100%, and the amount retention rate is 180.5% - which means that customers not only do not churn but also spend 80% more than the previous year.

Lingka Technology's prospectus states that in 2025, flexible workers increased their average annual income by about 5,000 yuan through Lingka Technology's platform.

As the business expands, Lingka Technology is also trying to introduce AI into the "daily settlement" market. In 2025, Lingka Technology launched the AI Agent "Xiaoling," transforming key employment tasks into intelligent experiences, and launched an "industry alliance" to achieve cross - enterprise recognition of flexible worker experience. In 2026, it jointly established the Research Center for Digital Economy and Employment with Fudan University, continuously increasing its efforts in the combination of industry and research.

Losing 269 million yuan annually: Is flexible employment not profitable?

The prospectus shows that in the past three years, Lingka Technology's total revenue increased from 460 million yuan to 2.44 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 129.2%.

However, despite the rapid revenue growth, Lingka Technology is still operating at a loss. The total loss in 2025 reached 269 million yuan. What's going on?

Lingka Technology's current business is mainly divided into two parts.

First is the core Flexible Worker Check - in business, commonly known as "contract work." For this business, Lingka Technology uses the "total amount basis" to recognize revenue. That is, all the fees paid by customers to Lingka Technology are recorded as the company's "revenue," while the remuneration and benefits paid to flexible workers are recorded as the company's "cost of sales." According to the prospectus data, the actual gross profit margin of this business in 2025 was only 2.4%. That is to say, the "price difference" that Lingka Technology earns is indeed not high.

The other business is "online recruitment matching service," which means "selling leads" to corporate customers. Corporate customers pay Lingka Technology by purchasing leads of flexible workers or task application lists. This business does not involve the proxy payment of workers' salaries and only charges pure service fees, so the gross profit margin is very high, reaching 87% in 2025.

Since Lingka Technology mainly focuses on the "contract work" business, 94.5% of its revenue in 2025 came from "contract work," which led to a very low overall gross profit margin, only 7% in 2025.

It can be seen that although the flexible employment market seems to be growing rapidly, it is actually a labor - intensive and difficult business that highly values operational efficiency.

Of course, a large part of Lingka Technology's 269 - million - yuan loss in 2025 actually comes from the fair - value loss of financial liabilities, which is only an accounting loss. If this part is excluded, Lingka Technology's adjusted net loss in 2025 was only 3.36 million yuan, and the profit turning point is just around the corner.

Seven Rounds of Financing: Early Investors Have a Floating Profit of 88 Times

Since its establishment, Lingka Technology has been highly sought after by capital. In its 13 - year entrepreneurial history, Lingka Technology completed seven rounds of financing from the seed round to the D round, plus multiple rounds of share transfers, with a cumulative financing amount of more than 300 million yuan. Considering the background that hard - technology startups dominated the primary market in the past decade, the financing success of Lingka Technology, which seems rather "ordinary," is particularly eye - catching.

The earliest investors entered in the seed round in 2015. At that time, Huadan Investment invested 1 million yuan at a price of 4.14 yuan per share (before the share split, corresponding to a par value of 1 yuan per share). Si Juwei and Ma Zihan obtained shares through share transfers at a price of 1 yuan per share. The post - investment valuation was only 10.1 million yuan - which is only enough to cover two weeks' revenue of the Flexible Worker Check - in business today.

Since then, Lingka Technology's valuation has been rising:

Pre - A round (2015): The valuation was 35 million yuan. Hangzhou Liyuan and others entered the market, with a per - share cost of about 11.45 yuan;

A round (2016): Jiaxing Lingchuang invested 12 million yuan at a price of 15.30 yuan per share, and the valuation was 58.8 million yuan;

B round (2017): Anchi Chuangyin, Shanghai Keqiji, etc. invested at a price of 35.94 yuan per share, and the valuation was 200 million yuan;

B+ round (2019): Shanghai Yunxin, a subsidiary of Ant Group, invested 70 million yuan at a price of 77.48 yuan per share, and Zhuhai Rongzhong invested 40 million yuan. The valuation soared to 550 million yuan;

C1/C2 rounds (2021): Zhuhai Rongzhong, Xinglu Tiancheng, Qianshi Venture Capital, etc. entered at a price of 133.71 yuan per share. The valuation exceeded 1 billion yuan, reaching 1.0585 billion yuan;

D round (2026): It raised 30 million yuan, and the valuation was 3.23 billion yuan.

Judging from the evolution of the valuation, the earliest seed - round investor, Huadan Investment, had a book return of 88 times by the D round. Ant Group entered the market at a price of about 77.48 yuan per share in 2019, and the price per share increased to 133.71 yuan by the C round, with a book appreciation of about 470%. Considering the possible valuation leap after the listing, early investors are expected to obtain more substantial returns.

The humble happiness of ordinary people and the grand narrative of the capital market have miraculously converged on the Lingka Technology platform. As the IPO progresses, whether Lingka Technology can redefine the working methods of hundreds of millions of people in China is something worthy of continuous attention.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Dongshisi Tiao Capital" (ID: DsstCapital). The author is Tao Huidong, and the editor is Wang Qingwu. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.