Backed by SoftBank and Hillhouse, a rising unicorn in Guangzhou is gearing up for an IPO.

A star unicorn from Guangzhou is "flying" towards the Hong Kong stock market.

Under the leadership of Peng Bin, XAG Co., Ltd. has not only liberated farmers from the complicated crop management tasks such as irrigation, fertilization, pesticide spraying, and field inspection by selling agricultural drones and other products, but also officially reached the door of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after more than a decade of development.

Along the way, XAG has received support from investors such as Chengwei Capital, Hillhouse Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund, Sinovation Ventures, Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Baidu Capital, Guangzhou Emerging Fund, Mingtai Capital, China Unicom Kaixing Investment, and Suikai Investment, and its valuation has reached 7.3 billion yuan.

Guangzhou, a Star Unicorn Takes Flight

The story of XAG dates back 18 years.

Back in 2007, Peng Bin, who graduated from Xidian University with a bachelor's degree, had worked at Microsoft and won the company's Most Valuable Professional honor. To do something "fun and meaningful", he, also a geek, founded the XAircraft team with a group of technology enthusiasts, laying the groundwork for the future establishment of XAG.

At that time, they began to get involved in household robots such as floor cleaners and vacuum cleaners. After judging that "drones" would be the first to be implemented in the robotics field, the XAircraft team pioneered multi - rotor drone technology, which not only met the needs of model aircraft enthusiasts and aerial photography users, but also laid the foundation for future entrepreneurship.

As drone technology continued to mature, Peng Bin and his partners founded XAG in Guangzhou, where the manufacturing supply chain is well - developed, and began to explore the applications of drones in scenarios such as scientific research, infrastructure inspection, search and rescue, and logistics. Eventually, they focused on the agricultural field.

Due to problems such as the aging rural population, low efficiency of plant protection, extensive management models, and serious land pollution, farmers have a huge demand for plant protection services such as spraying fertilizers and pesticides using drones. Facing about 2 billion mu of arable land in China, they realized this was a huge market.

To develop suitable products, XAG turned drones into tools for farmland operations, quickly iterated versions and software, and continuously upgraded the hardware. After accumulating experience from operating on 2 million mu of land, they launched the first - generation plant protection drone.

By holding product promotion meetings in many counties and rural areas in China, XAG attracted more and more people to become the company's agents through channel sinking, so as to participate in providing plant protection and other services using agricultural drones, and the results were quite good. Peng Bin once revealed that in 2017, many participating users had achieved profitability.

Finally, by introducing functions such as aerial seeding and fertilization, the company transformed its plant protection drones into multi - functional agricultural drones. At the same time, it also launched agricultural unmanned vehicles, agricultural machinery autopilots, intelligent farm Internet of Things products, and farm management systems, successfully evolving from an agricultural drone company into an agricultural technology company.

After more than a decade of development, XAG has gradually grown into a star unicorn in Guangzhou and successfully reached the door of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Selling Agricultural Robots, Annual Revenue Exceeds 1 Billion Yuan

Today, XAG has a wide range of agricultural robot products.

From agricultural drones to agricultural unmanned vehicles, the company aims to cover all scenarios of crop management in all terrains such as paddy fields, dry fields, greenhouses, and orchards, including irrigation, fertilization, pesticide spraying, and field inspection.

As one of the first companies in China to put unmanned aircraft into agricultural production, XAG's agricultural drones can perform precise spraying, intelligent seeding, and field inspection. In their words, even in complex terrains such as paddy fields, dry fields, orchards, and hilly or mountainous areas, agricultural drones can achieve automated and high - precision operations.

Data shows that in the process of pesticide spraying for rice in Asia, 10 - 20 people need to work continuously for 5 - 10 days to cover 1,000 mu of paddy fields. After applying XAG's agricultural unmanned aircraft, the above work can be completed by 1 - 2 operators in 1 - 2 days, while increasing output by 5 - 10%, saving pesticides by 20 - 30%, and saving about 90% of water.

Behind its strong strength is the company's continuous investment in R & D. Since 2022, they have invested nearly 600 million yuan in R & D in three and a half years, and finally own more than 1,000 invention patents, more than 1,200 utility model patents, and more than 350 industrial design patents.

With the full - chain self - sufficiency ability of multiple core components, while the maximum payload of XAG's products has increased from about 6 kilograms to 80 kilograms, the price of the flagship agricultural unmanned aircraft has dropped from 200,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan, showing excellent economic performance.

With continuous recognition from customers, the company has quickly built a large - scale distributor network, covering more than 900 counties in China. At the same time, through distributors in nearly 60 countries and regions, it has achieved coverage in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.

Meanwhile, their performance has grown rapidly. According to the prospectus, from 2022 to June 2025, XAG's revenues reached approximately 605 million yuan, 614 million yuan, 1.066 billion yuan, and 745 million yuan respectively.

In the words of Frost & Sullivan, calculated by the revenue in 2024, their market share in the global agricultural robot market reached 10.7%, ranking second.

It is worth noting that the company's net loss has narrowed from 254 million yuan in 2022 to 133 million yuan in 2023. In 2024, they successfully turned losses into profits, with a net profit of about 70 million yuan. In the first half of 2025, XAG's net profit exceeded 130 million yuan.

With the decrease in agricultural labor force, the increase in food demand, technological progress, and policy promotion, players in the global agricultural robot market worth tens of billions of yuan, such as XAG, will also witness rapid development.

SoftBank and Hillhouse Place Bets, Valuation Reaches 7.3 Billion Yuan

Along the way, XAG has raised funds up to the C++ round.

As early as August 2014, Chengwei Capital was infected by Peng Bin's passion for technology and directly invested 5 million US dollars in them. In June 2016, the company completed its Series B financing, with investors including Chengwei Capital, Mingtai Capital, Pocket International, etc.

In January 2019, XAG received 130 million yuan from investors such as Chengwei Capital, Mingtai Capital, Tianrongxin, and Centerlab. In October of the following year, Baidu Capital invested 280 million yuan in the company. One month later, SoftBank Vision Fund II, Sinovation Ventures, Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Guangzhou Emerging Fund, etc. became their shareholders.

At that time, SoftBank Vision Fund was optimistic about the smart agriculture path pioneered by XAG. "The XAG team has been deeply involved in the field of smart agriculture technology, continuously developing and launching industry - leading products such as drones, unmanned vehicles, autopilots, and agricultural Internet of Things, forming a closed - loop smart agriculture ecosystem."

"XAG provides AI - based agricultural technologies and solutions globally, bringing changes to an industry with a history of thousands of years in just a few years." Li Kaifu, the chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures, once said bluntly, "We believe that XAG has subversively promoted the level of agricultural infrastructure and digitalization, and we are optimistic about the commercial and social values that XAG's excellent team can create."

In February 2021, Hillhouse Ventures stepped in and became a shareholder of XAG by buying old shares.

"The 'unmanned' solution provided by XAG has effectively achieved carbon emission reduction by strengthening digital operations, fine management, and industry concentration in each link of agricultural production." In their view, the unmanned smart agriculture system solution established by XAG after years of in - depth cultivation makes it possible to significantly improve agricultural production efficiency.

After completing the C++ round of financing in October 2023, XAG received 25.5 million yuan from China Unicom Kaixing Investment. In July 2025, Suikai Investment spent 150 million yuan to buy old shares and became a shareholder of the company.

Before going public, SoftBank Vision Fund holds 12.86% of the shares, making it the largest external shareholder; Chengwei Capital holds 10.82%, Baidu Capital holds 6.12%, Sinovation Ventures holds 4.5%, and Hillhouse Ventures holds 2.99%.

According to the "2025 Global Unicorn List" released by Hurun Research Institute, XAG's valuation is 7.3 billion yuan. This also means that Peng Bin, who holds about 34.16% of the shares before the company goes public, has a net worth of about 2.5 billion yuan.

Four years ago, Peng Bin once said bluntly in an interview that entrepreneurs should be the ones who change the world and do things recognized by the world's trend. Now, XAG is continuously solving the biggest demand in global agricultural production - the problem of "no one to farm" through the method of "replacing humans with robots".

This article is from the WeChat public account "Dongshisi Tiao Capital" (ID: DsstCapital), author: Lu Zhigao, published by 36Kr with authorization.