Just now, HSG invested in Zhang Xue.
PE Daily learned that Zhang Xue Motorcycle has received exclusive investment from HSG, and the two sides will carry out in-depth cooperation in the future around corporate governance, talent development, industrial resources and global expansion.
At this moment, it has been exactly half a year since Zhang Xue Motorcycle won the championship.
"The entry of HSG brings Zhang Xue Motorcycle a partner that can walk alongside us for the long term," said Zhang Xue, founder of Zhang Xue Motorcycle. He noted that the team will continue to optimize engines and complete vehicles, conduct further track testing, and collect real feedback from users. High-performance Chinese motorcycles have the potential to win over global consumers, and this cause requires patience and is worthy of long-term investment.
Zhang Xue Motorcycle is a phenomenal name in the industry this year. Its founder Zhang Xue was once a motorcycle repair apprentice in Hunan 20 years ago. After years of hard work, he finally stood at the pinnacle of the motorcycle world with his dream and achieved a remarkable rags-to-riches success story.
This scene can be described as the most inspiring moment of this year.
After Zhang Xue Won the Championship
Investors Started Their Relay
This is a dream collaboration.
The participation of HSG marks an important milestone in the development of Zhang Xue Motorcycle. While Zhang Xue Motorcycle will continue to focus on engine R&D, complete vehicle manufacturing, product development and racing verification, HSG will leverage its experience in corporate governance, talent network, industrial ecosystem and global resources to support the company's long-term growth.
Prior to this, Zhang Xue Motorcycle had not been on the radar of mainstream investors.
In July 2024, changes to industrial and commercial registration information showed that Zhang Xue Motorcycle welcomed its first institutional shareholder — Shanghai Gaoxin Lingzhi Venture Capital Partnership, which is managed by Gaoxin Capital.
Later, state-backed capital from Zhejiang Province also joined in. In March this year, Zhang Xue Motorcycle completed the change of its investor lineup, with two new shareholders being Hangzhou Zhechuang Baige and Jinhua Zhechuang Jinyi Intelligent Control, both funds under Zhejiang Venture Capital Group (hereinafter referred to as "ZVC"). The latter is a key state-backed investment entity in Zhejiang Province, tasked with building a high-level sci-tech innovation investment platform.
ZVC stated that at that time, Zhang Xue Motorcycle had invested nearly 70 million yuan in R&D funds to break through the "stuck neck" core technology barriers, and once bore the loss pressure brought by technological innovation. Recognizing the great value of hard-core technological innovation, ZVC completed the leading investment in Zhang Xue Motorcycle's Series A round in January 2026, with an investment amount of 90 million yuan and a post-money valuation of 1.09 billion yuan.
Undoubtedly, this round of financing fully supports the enterprise's "high-proportion" R&D investment and "integrated" production capacity expansion, and has become a key driving force for the enterprise's development.
After Zhang Xue Motorcycle won the championship, investors began to inquire through various channels, hoping to get in touch with Zhang Xue. PE Daily learned that many peers even contacted Zhang Ying, founding partner of Matrix Partners China, who is a long-time friend of Zhang Xue. The two once ordered takeout for lunch together in 2025, showing a very close relationship.
Speaking of which, there is another "angel investor" in Zhang Xue's life — his wife Chen Xingyi.
Chen Xingyi and Zhang Xue are junior high school classmates, and they have been together since they were 14 or 15 years old. It can be said that she witnessed the whole process of Zhang Xue growing from a repair apprentice to the founder of the world champion motorcycle brand.
They went through a very poor and tough period. In the early days of starting the business, the couple borrowed a lot of money. It was not until 2018, when Zhang Xue got a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan, that the whole family finally breathed a sigh of relief, "Our life is finally guaranteed."
"I am a person without big dreams, but my life has been seen by more people because of his dream," Chen Xingyi shared her true feelings in front of the camera.
People can't help but sigh that the most beautiful fate in life is to meet each other when both are in humble circumstances.
Sponsors Flock In
Zhang Xue Started to Talk About IPO
The most inspiring moment in March this year is still fresh in our memory.
At the Portuguese station of the World Superbike Championship (WSBK), Zhang Xue Motorcycle won the championship with an absolute advantage of nearly 4 seconds, breaking the long-term monopoly of powerful western and Japanese brands such as Ducati and Yamaha. In the second round held the next day, Zhang Xue Motorcycle claimed another victory, achieving two consecutive championships.
Since then, the spotlight has been focused on this young man from Hunan who rewrote the history of Chinese motorcycles. Few people know that before that, Zhang Xue had long been troubled by the difficulty of finding sponsors.
It was not until the appearance of Dongpeng Special Drink. Back in November 2025, Zhang Xue released a video looking for sponsors to support his participation in international competitions. A netizen mentioned Dongpeng Special Drink in the comment section, which quickly got thousands of likes, and was soon noticed by Hu Huapeng, head of user operation of Dongpeng Special Drink.
After several rounds of communication, the two sides finalized the cooperation and officially announced it to the public in January this year. They described Zhang Xue Motorcycle as a brand with national pride, hard-core strength and positive energy, which fully meets Dongpeng Special Drink's standards for brand cooperation.
Nowadays, sponsors are pouring in one after another. On April 8, Guan Haitao, head of the marketing department of Honor, officially announced on social platforms that Honor has officially become the chief strategic cooperation brand of Zhang Xue Motorcycle and WSBK, and a series of co-branding cooperation will be carried out in the future.
New An, a subsidiary of CATL, also extended an olive branch. When responding to Red Star News, CATL said that the two sides are indeed in initial contact for electric motorcycle cooperation. It is widely rumored in the industry that the first track-level electric motorcycle jointly developed by the two parties is expected to be unveiled in the second half of this year and go into mass production in 2028, with a top speed of over 120km/h, a range of over 200km, and a price range of 50,000 to 80,000 yuan, directly targeting imported mid-to-high-end electric motorcycles.
The highly anticipated Zhang Xue Motorcycle has lived up to expectations. It is understood that Zhang Xue Motorcycle achieved a revenue of 670 million yuan last year, and its full-year revenue forecast for 2026 is in the range of 2.5 billion to 3 billion yuan. Currently, the company's monthly delivery volume of motorcycles has exceeded 10,000 units.
More support is pouring in like a tide. In June this year, Zhang Xue Motorcycle acquired land for a production base in Chongqing Liangjiang New Area; in July, it officially signed an agreement to settle a new R&D and production base with a planned annual production capacity of 500,000 units. After the project is completed and put into operation, the overall production capacity of the enterprise is expected to increase by 3 to 5 times.
On July 4, Zhang Xue released a video revealing that he currently has a debt of nearly 100 million yuan. After selling a small part of his shares this time, he will pay off all the debts this month and "never owe money again". During the Roundtable Conference on High-Quality Development of China's Motorcycle Industry, when asked about the plan to land on the capital market, Zhang Xue said:
"Going public should go with the flow."
Perhaps in the future, we will see Zhang Xue standing on the stage of IPO bell-ringing ceremony.
This article is from the WeChat Official Account "PE Daily" (ID: pedaily2012), written by Liu Bo, republished with authorization from 36Kr.