An internet "old guy" made an investment and earned 200 million yuan in one deal.

An old - hand in the Internet era has quietly reaped a return of over 200 million yuan in the robotics track. This person is Yang Haoyong, the founder of Guazi Used Cars.

Turning the clock back to 2015, the consumer Internet was at its peak. Yang Haoyong's Guazi Used Cars was in the midst of a fierce market battle. However, while deeply involved in the battle for the main business, he made an angel investment of 6.66 million yuan in a startup in Tianjin with fewer than 20 employees. This company is Atomrobot, which recently submitted an IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Liu Songtao, the founder of Atomrobot, is Yang Haoyong's junior at Tianjin University. Graduated from the major of mechanical engineering, he harbored the simple vision of "liberating 300 million blue - collar workers in China" with robots and attempted to enter a niche market long - monopolized by foreign brands with laboratory technology.

Ten years have passed, and the industrial robotics track has witnessed a wave of listing in Hong Kong, with more than a dozen companies submitting listing applications intensively. With the rapid aggregation of capital, the industry's valuation has soared. Yang Haoyong's early bet has reached the cashing - in window, with an investment return rate of over 3300% and a book profit exceeding 200 million yuan.

Yang Haoyong, regarded as an entrepreneur from the previous era, has his own understanding of the industry cycle and rhythm as an angel investor.

This reminds me of the previous discussions about the "old - timers" and "new - comers" in the venture capital circle. In fact, new - comers have their vigor, while old - timers have their strength. How to find one's own rhythm in a complex environment, survive the cycle, maintain strategic patience, and make practical decisions at critical moments is always a compulsory course for every investor.

The return of the first - generation Internet tycoon as an investor

As a first - generation Internet tycoon in China, Yang Haoyong has many identity labels.

In 2005, he and his elder brother Yang Haoran founded the classified advertising website Ganji.com and fought against its main competitor, 58.com, for many years. In November 2015, 58 Ganji spun off its used - car business, Guazi. After the spin - off, Yang Haoyong invested as an individual, holding more than 50% of the shares, while the rest were held by 58 Ganji. In 2017, he founded the new - car retail platform Maodou New Cars. Subsequently, Guazi Used Cars and Maodou New Cars were integrated into Chehaoduo Group.

Recently, most of the online news about Yang Haoyong comes from his speeches at Mountain Capital.

Mountain Capital was founded in December 2015 and is a typical "entrepreneurial fund". In addition to Yang Haoyong, the founding partners also include Xu Shi, the founder of NetEase News APP. Mountain Capital manages multiple early - stage and growth - stage dual - currency funds, focusing on areas such as AI+, going global, transportation, and new energy. It has invested in a number of growing companies such as Li Auto, RELX, Fenbi, Halara, Orient Space, Yuanbao Technology, Flash Express, and Yuanfudao.

Meanwhile, Mountain Capital continues to pay attention to cutting - edge technologies such as data mining, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. Xu Shi once said, "We invite scientists from MIT and Stanford as knowledge reserves to help with the analysis of cutting - edge technologies. However, it still takes time for scientific breakthroughs to develop into mature business models, and we haven't seen an ideal implementation model yet."

In fact, Yang Haoyong's personal investment started during his entrepreneurial period. In November 2015, as the chairman and CEO of Guazi Used Cars, he "led the team" and also invested $60 million in Guazi as an individual investor.

Just when the outside world generally thought he would go all - in on the used - car track, Yang Haoyong unexpectedly took out 6.6667 million yuan and jointly bet on Atomrobot founded by his junior, Liu Songtao, with two other individual investors.

At that time, Atomrobot was still in the early stage of entrepreneurship. Limited by insufficient management experience and unclear market positioning, the company once fell into difficulties. After the angel round, Yang Haoyong didn't "just invest and do nothing" like most financial investors. Instead, he was deeply involved in the company's development: sorting out the business model, introducing supply - chain resources, and even testing robot application scenarios in Guazi Used Cars' factories. All these have far exceeded the capabilities of an angel investor and are closer to today's industrial investment concept.

In 2016, Atomrobot completed its Pre - A round of financing, with Shenzhen Capital Group Co., Ltd. entering the scene. In this round, Yang Haoyong recouped 6 million yuan in cash through partial equity transfer but still retained most of his shares. In the nearly ten years since then, he has hardly reduced his holdings.

Ten years later, Atomrobot is rushing for a listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company's valuation has soared from about 4 million yuan in the early stage to 2.5 billion yuan, a 625 - fold increase. Calculated based on the post - D - round valuation, the book value of Yang Haoyong's shares is about 222.5 million yuan. Adding the 6 million yuan cashed out in the early stage, the overall return rate exceeds 3300%.

The successive support of industrial capital

Atomrobot was founded in 2013, when the domestic industrial robotics industry was accelerating its development. A report released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology shows that since 2013, China has become the world's largest consumer market for industrial robots. In terms of application structure, nearly 60% of industrial robots were concentrated in the fields of handling and loading/unloading that year, and painting and sealing ranked as the second - largest application scenario.

In this year, Liu Songtao, the founder, had just graduated from Tianjin University with a master's degree in mechanical engineering. He keenly spotted the niche track of parallel robots, which had been long - monopolized by foreign brands. At that time, China's manufacturing industry was undergoing an automation upgrade wave. The demand for high - speed sorting robots in industries such as food, daily chemicals, and pharmaceuticals was growing rapidly. However, almost all the parallel robots on the market were from Swiss and Japanese brands, and the price of a single device was often hundreds of thousands of yuan, which was unaffordable for small and medium - sized manufacturing enterprises.

Introduced by an investment manager from Shenzhen Capital Group Co., Ltd., Liu Songtao met Yang Haoyong, also an alumnus from Tianjin University. Yang Haoyong's evaluation of this project was "solid technology, large potential, but low attention."

After receiving Yang Haoyong's support, Atomrobot gradually came into the view of industrial capital. In October 2016 and August 2017, it launched its Pre - A round of financing. Among them, Ningbo Haida invested 17 million yuan, Shenzhen Capital Group Co., Ltd. contributed 3 million yuan, and its affiliated company, Red Earth Venture Capital, invested 7.56 million yuan.

In the A - round financing launched in January 2019, the industrial and academic backgrounds were more prominent. Professor Wang Tianmiao, the honorary director of the Robotics Research Institute of Beihang University, the initiator of the Zhiyou·Yarui Innovation and Entrepreneurship Platform, and the dean of the Zhongguancun Zhiyou Research Institute, personally invested 1.2 million yuan to buy shares. His controlled Ningbo Yarui invested 8.4 million yuan in Atomrobot, and Beijing Yarui invested another 8 million yuan, with a total investment of 17.6 million yuan.

From April 2021 to October 2025, the company entered the fast lane of financing and expansion, completing at least four rounds of financing in a row and successively attracting well - known industrial, financial, and state - owned investors such as Siasun Investment, TEDA Haihe Intelligent Manufacturing Fund, Guozhong Capital, Lenovo Capital, Qingdao Haichuang under Haier Financial Holdings, TEDA Science and Technology Investment, and Jingshuihu Venture Capital. As of now, Atomrobot has completed seven rounds of financing.

With the continuous support of capital and industrial resources, Atomrobot's product line has expanded rapidly: In 2020, its parallel robots ranked first in the domestic self - owned brand market; in 2023, it launched heavy - load collaborative robots; in 2024, it released high - speed SCARA robots; in 2025, it further launched embodied intelligent robots.

After more than a decade of development, Atomrobot has provided products and solutions for over 1000 enterprises globally, accumulating more than 1000 niche application scenarios. Its business covers more than 30 countries and regions in East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America.

The listing wave of industrial robots

In the past year, the industrial robotics track has witnessed a wave of intensive capitalization. More than a dozen companies, including YouiTech, Weiyi Intelligent Manufacturing, and Rock Robotics, have successively submitted listing applications to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, setting off a listing wave.

In terms of the path, Atomrobot is a typical "specialized technology company" under Chapter 18C, which is also the listing channel in Hong Kong chosen by most robotics enterprises in the past year. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange launched Chapter 18C of the Listing Rules in 2023, allowing technology enterprises that are not yet profitable but have technological barriers and growth potential to enter the capital market, opening the financing gate for the robotics industry, which focuses on R & D and has a long cycle.

Although the new regulations have lowered the listing threshold, the reality of the scarcity of profitability in the robotics industry still remains.

Atomrobot continued to incur losses in 2023 and 2024, and the prospectus warns that it may still generate net losses in the future. During the reporting period, the company achieved revenues of 93 million yuan, 135 million yuan, and 157 million yuan respectively, with a steadily expanding scale. However, the profit side was under significant pressure - the net losses in 2023 and 2024 were 39 million yuan and 47 million yuan respectively. Although it achieved a net profit of 938,000 yuan in the first three quarters of 2025, it is still uncertain whether it can truly turn losses into profits for the whole year.

Behind the losses is a typical cycle of expansion and product iteration. As a traditional business, the gross profit margin of parallel robots (an industrial robot form with multiple robotic arms working in coordination) has long been maintained above 20%, but the new products have not yet formed a scale effect.

For example, in 2023, the heavy - load collaborative robots launched by Atomrobot only contributed 1.38 million yuan in revenue, accounting for less than 2%, with a gross profit of - 2.75 million yuan and a gross profit margin as low as - 198.9%. The high - speed SCARA robots released in 2024, which are widely used in 3C electronics production lines and are characterized by "high horizontal speed and high vertical rigidity", achieved a revenue of 810,000 yuan that year, accounting for only 0.6%, with a gross profit of - 1.01 million yuan and a gross profit margin of - 125%.

The reason is that industrial robots require heavy R & D investment. In the early stage, it is difficult for new products to reduce costs through large - scale production, and losses are almost an inevitable stage. At the same time, the company is in the process of transitioning from outsourcing to self - research for some of its core components, further increasing R & D expenses. During the reporting period, Atomrobot's R & D investment accounted for 20.7%, 22%, and 9.2% of its revenue respectively. Although the proportion in the first three quarters of 2025 fluctuated due to the statistical cycle, it still remained in a high - investment range overall.

Although the Hong Kong stock market is becoming the "financing hub" for industrial robotics enterprises, behind the listing wave, the industry is still in the stage of technological implementation and commercialization climbing. Profitability remains the core challenge for most companies. It's hard to say when this capital competition will really end.

In such an industry rhythm, the so - called consensus and non - consensus are often just temporary market narratives. Whether one can survive the long cycle after the hype fades ultimately depends on time. At this time, the value of an investor's experience and determination is reflected.

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