Zhipu with 100 billion, Tsinghua University has made a fortune.

Another phenomenal return in the venture capital circle.

Since its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 8th, the stock price of Zhipu has been soaring. In just one week, its market value has increased by over HK$50 billion. As of now, Zhipu's latest market value has reached HK$110 billion.

Since its establishment, Zhipu has completed at least eight rounds of financing, with a total financing scale exceeding 8.3 billion yuan. It has attracted more than 50 institutional investors, with a total of 87 shareholders. As the stock price skyrocketed, the investors and the employee team behind it have all achieved extraordinary returns.

What the outside world rarely notices is that when Zhipu was founded in 2019, an extremely important figure emerged - Huakong Technology, which is the technology transfer platform of Tsinghua University. It has accompanied Zhipu ever since, creating a story of remarkable returns.

Zhipu's Market Value Reaches HK$110 Billion: A Tsinghua Story

Looking back, Zhipu has a long - standing predecessor.

Going back to 2006, the Knowledge Engineering Group (KEG) of the Department of Computer Science at Tsinghua University released a product called AMiner. Its core was to use artificial intelligence to discover scientific research patterns, which laid the foundation for Zhipu's technology in the future.

In 2019, in order to maximize the value of scientific research achievements, Zhipu was established based on the past technological accumulation of the KEG Laboratory. Among them, Tang Jie, a well - known professor in the Department of Computer Science at Tsinghua University, served as the chief scientist; Zhang Peng, a doctoral candidate in the Innovative Leading Engineering Program at Tsinghua University, served as the CEO and general manager, leading the business, R & D, and operations; Liu Debing served as the chairman, responsible for strategy and management.

With Zhipu's listing, the company's initial equity structure has also come to light - in addition to the founding team members, it also includes two independent third parties, Zhongke Chuangxing and Huakong Technology.

Among them, Huakong Technology was established in 2014. As a platform - type company for the technology transfer of Tsinghua University, it is the main entity for incubating and promoting technology transfer at Tsinghua. As early as when Zhipu started its independent business, Huakong Technology became an initial shareholder. According to the data, at that time, Huakong Technology held 11.99% of the shares.

Zhang Peng once said that the company started with technology, a team, customers, and a market. "It had revenue from day one." Subsequently, a wave of large - scale models swept across the industry, and Zhipu firmly ranked among the first echelon of domestic large - scale models. Now that Zhipu is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, its latest market value is HK$110 billion.

A project emerging from a Tsinghua laboratory has created a market value of tens of billions. This is exactly the touching part of the technology transfer from universities. Currently, Huakong Technology holds 3.53% of Zhipu's shares, corresponding to a market value of approximately HK$3.883 billion. In other words, this technology transfer project has brought a book profit of over HK$3.8 billion to Tsinghua.

The story of technology transfer at Tsinghua University continues. So far, it has incubated star projects such as Wuwen Xinqiong, Huayi Quantum, Xingdong Jiyuan, Qingwei Intelligence, and Qingshen Technology. It is reported that Huakong Technology represents Tsinghua University in holding and managing the equity formed by the university's technology transfer, which belongs to the university and its departments. It aims to achieve efficient management of the equity of technology transfer projects and preserve and increase the value of state - owned assets, and then feed back the obtained income to the university to continuously support technological innovation.

A Super Return in the Venture Capital Circle

Remember on the first day of listing, Zhipu's market value exceeded HK$50 billion. Even so, the investors behind it have reaped substantial rewards.

Zhipu's listing coincided with the IPO dividend period for Chinese technology companies. Not only Zhipu, but on the first day of listing, MiniMax's market value exceeded HK$100 billion, which was even more remarkable.

What happened to Zhipu in this week as its market value increased from HK$50 billion to over HK$100 billion?

When the domestic large - scale model enters a new stage of competition, commercialization ability is particularly important. In the past week, Zhipu and Didi announced a strategic cooperation, which will explore the application of AGI technology and intelligent agents in the travel field. The company's stock price immediately rose by more than 30% on that day.

Subsequently, on January 16th, Zhipu announced the joint open - source of a new - generation image - generation model, GLM - Image, with Huawei. In less than 24 hours after its open - source launch, it topped the Trending list of the globally well - known AI open - source community, Hugging Face. As expected, there was another wave of sharp rise.

In total, Zhipu's stock price has increased by more than 126% in seven trading days since its listing, creating a tens - of - billions IPO in Beijing this year.

This situation is undoubtedly the harvest time that investors have been looking forward to. According to the prospectus, before the IPO, Zhipu had completed at least eight rounds of financing, with a total financing scale exceeding 8.3 billion yuan, and had attracted more than 50 institutional shareholders. According to the order of changes in the prospectus, they include venture capital institutions such as Zhongke Chuangxing, Huakong Technology Transfer Co., Ltd., Tongzhi Investment, Fortune Capital, Huakong Fund, Legend Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, Capital Today, Photosynthetic Venture Capital, Shunwei Capital, Sequoia China, Hillhouse Capital, Yunhui Capital, China Merchants Group Venture Capital, Prosperity7, 5G Fund, Zhuhai Science and Technology Industry Group, Zhongguancun Science City, Ceyuan Ventures, Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group; industrial capital such as Meituan, Ant Group, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, Kingsoft, Boss Zhipin, and TAL Education Group; and local state - owned assets from Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Tianjin, Hangzhou, etc.

Zhipu's shareholder camp is so large that it is difficult to list them all. But there is no doubt that this is an excellent situation - in the last round of financing in May 2025, the cost per share of Zhipu was 60.52 yuan, and now the stock price has quadrupled.

Of course, the company's core team has also received generous rewards. Currently, Huihui and Zhideng are the employee share - holding platforms of Zhipu, holding 8.97% and 6.18% of the shares respectively. It is reported that Huihui has 426 limited partners, all of whom are current and former employees of Zhipu; Zhideng has 25 limited partners, all of whom are current employees and consultants of Zhipu. As netizens put it:

"Overnight, a group of people in Haidian have achieved financial freedom."

The Era of University Entrepreneurship in China

This is a microcosm of the technology transfer from universities.

Tsinghua University has always been at the forefront. Over the years, Tsinghua has successively established specialized institutions to promote technology transfer, such as the Leading Group for Intellectual Property Management and Technology Transfer, the Technology Transfer Institute, and the Office for University - Local Cooperation, and has established a relatively complete technology transfer system.

Taking Huakong Technology as an example, since its establishment, it has promoted more than 350 projects, covering more than 40 departments, including more than 40 projects led by academicians. The projects cover the fields of information technology, energy and environmental protection, high - end manufacturing, life and health, and new materials science and technology, gradually becoming a model for technology transfer.

Another typical case that comes to mind is DeepScale, jointly founded by teachers and students from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Tsinghua University. In 2018, it was acquired by Xilinx for $300 million, thus becoming the first venture capital exit case in China's AI industry and the first company at Tsinghua University to use scientific research achievements as capital contribution, commercialize its products, and achieve cash returns since relevant regulations were introduced.

Even more astonishing is a set of data: in the past three years, Tsinghua University has completed the disposal of approximately 450 achievements, with a total amount exceeding 1.5 billion yuan, and has incubated 300 companies such as Zhipu. According to the "Annual Report on Technology Transfer in China 2024", Tsinghua University ranked first on the list of the total contract amount of technology transfer by higher education institutions in 2023.

Of course, it's not just Tsinghua. After a long - term R & D process, more and more technology transfer projects are emerging from laboratories.

This week, Zeling Biotech submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Looking back, Zeling Biotech grew up relying on the technology transfer mechanism of West China Hospital of Sichuan University. The person in charge behind it is Dr. Chen Lijuan, a professor at West China Hospital of Sichuan University.

A number of entrepreneurial projects from universities have caught up with good opportunities. For example, Starring Energy, which originated from the Fusion Laboratory at Tsinghua University, recently raised 1 billion yuan in financing, creating the largest fusion financing at the beginning of the year; the University of Science and Technology of China has incubated a number of quantum enterprises such as QuantumCTek; riding on the wave of commercial spaceflight, BLT Space's latest market value exceeds 30 billion yuan, and this is a project from Northwestern Polytechnical University...

Historical experience shows that the source of technological innovation often comes from universities. More and more university teachers and students with original innovation ability are stepping out of the ivory tower, and universities are constantly improving their internal technology transfer systems. "Going to universities to scout for projects" has become a common scene in the venture capital circle. The next spark that will change the future may be hidden in a certain laboratory.

Different from the past, the era of technology - based entrepreneurship in China is rising.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Investment World" (ID: pedaily2012), written by Wu Qiong and reprinted by 36Kr with authorization.