The largest IPO in Shanghai this year has just arrived.

Today (September 11), Shanghai Enflame Technology Co., Ltd. (abbreviated as Enflame Technology) officially listed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board, with an issue price of 142.18 yuan per share. Its opening price surged by more than 190%, and its market value once exceeded 200 billion yuan, making it the IPO with the largest opening market value in Shanghai this year. Calculated at this price, investors who win one allotment (500 shares) can earn over 150,000 yuan.

At this point, Enflame Technology, together with Moore Threads, MetaX Integrated Circuits, and Biren Technology, the "Four Rising Stars of Domestic AI Chips", have successfully met on the public capital market after completing their respective IPOs.

Zhao Lidong, Chairman of Enflame Technology, graduated from the prestigious EE85 class of Tsinghua University. In 2018, he and his former AMD colleague Zhang Yalin founded Enflame Technology in Shanghai. Over the following eight years, a long list of investors gathered behind Enflame Technology, among which Tencent became the largest external shareholder with a shareholding ratio of over 20%.

"Enflame took root in Shanghai and grew up all the way, truly benefiting from the all-round nurturing of policies, talents and industrial chains here." On the eve of its listing, the investment media visited Enflame Technology, and Zhao Lidong told the growth story of Enflame that started in Shanghai in a gentle tone. The outside world may not know that up to now, state-owned capital forces from Shanghai represented by Shanghai State-owned Investment Co., Ltd. have been standing behind Enflame.

Eight years of entrepreneurship has gone through arduous journeys. With the ringing of the listing gong, another hundred-billion-yuan IPO was born in Shanghai.

Eight Years Ago, Two Founders

Starting From Shanghai

In March 2018, in an office in Shanghai, Zhao Lidong and Zhang Yalin decided to start their business.

The two had worked together at AMD for many years. Zhao Lidong holds a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University and a master's degree in electrical and computer engineering from Utah State University in the United States. He has worked in Silicon Valley for more than 20 years, served at AMD for many years, was responsible for the R&D of CPU/GPU/APU and multiple related core IPs, and participated in the establishment of AMD's China R&D center.

Zhang Yalin graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering of Fudan University. He used to be one of the main persons in charge of AMD's global chip R&D. He successfully led the development and mass production of multiple world-class chips at AMD Shanghai R&D Center, and has rich practical experience in engineering and productization.

At that time, the global AI wave was just emerging — "At that time, we judged that no matter for models, computing power or chips, the starting line of the AI chip track was not far apart, leaving more space for our independent innovation." Zhao Lidong recalled.

At that time, there were two paths for the founding team: either follow the mainstream to make CUDA-compatible products, or start a new path to adopt the DSA architecture. Zhao Lidong resolutely chose the latter, which required larger R&D investment but was also more independent.

"If we follow others step by step, we may benefit in the short term, but our hands and feet will still be bound in the long run. More importantly, our original intention of starting a business is to take a path of AI chips that belongs to ourselves." Zhao Lidong still remembers the scene at that time.

In this way, Enflame Technology officially settled in Shanghai in March 2018. The name of the company "Enflame" comes from the meaning of "Sui Ren invented fire by drilling wood, and a single spark can start a prairie fire". The two founders had clear division of labor: Zhao Lidong served as Chairman and CEO, responsible for strategy, financing and business operation; Zhang Yalin served as General Manager, responsible for product planning, R&D and production operation.

Only 18 months later, Enflame Technology launched its first-generation cloud AI training chip "Suisa 1.0" and training acceleration card "Cloud Enflame T10", achieving a key breakthrough in domestic high-end AI chips. In the following eight years, Enflame's team independently developed and iterated four generations of architectures and 5 cloud AI chips, built a complete product system covering AI chips, AI acceleration cards and modules, intelligent computing systems and clusters, and AI computing and programming software platforms, and ranked among the first echelon of domestic cloud AI chip manufacturers.

Different from simply comparing the theoretical computing power of a single card, Enflame Technology pays more attention to the industrial closed loop of "chip-module collaboration", and builds a complete ecosystem based on domestic large models, domestic chips and domestic software platforms.

The cooperation with Tencent is recognized as the most critical industrial landing practice for Enflame. Since 2019, the two sides have expanded from small-scale pilot to large-scale full-scenario deployment, and Enflame Technology's products have been widely used in Tencent's core AI scenarios.

Now the industry has shown a clear shift: the demand for inference computing power is rising rapidly, and overseas technology giants have stepped in to develop non-GPGPU inference chips independently. This confirms Enflame Technology's early judgment — the competition of AI computing power is moving from the performance comparison of a single chip to the comprehensive competition of systems, clusters, and hardware-software collaboration.

Looking at the prospectus, from 2023 to 2025, Enflame Technology's revenue rose from 301 million yuan to 990 million yuan, with a three-year compound annual growth rate of 81.32%, and its net loss narrowed from 1.665 billion yuan to 1.164 billion yuan.

Over the eight years, the company experienced ups and downs. Today, Zhao Lidong and Zhang Yalin finally led the team to stand on the gong-striking platform of the Sci-Tech Innovation Board.

Financing History

The Moment of Return for Investors

Enflame's shareholder register can be regarded as a sample of Shanghai state-owned capital and industrial capital patiently accompanying the growth of technology enterprises.

In less than a month after its establishment in 2018, Enflame Technology obtained its seed round financing. Zhao Lidong recalled that in addition to market-oriented institutions such as Yihe Capital (fund under Wu Yue Feng Capital), ZhenFund, Dtai Capital and Yunhe Capital, Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Group (abbreviated as Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Group) under Shanghai State-owned Investment also invested, which was the earliest Shanghai state-owned capital force to support Enflame Technology.

Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Group has been laying out the semiconductor field since the 1990s, and has accumulated a huge industrial ecosystem. Dai Yedong, Deputy General Manager of the Group's Project Investment Department, recalled to investment media that shortly after Enflame was established, Zhao Lidong and Zhang Yalin came to Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Group for a project roadshow. The share of Enflame's first round of financing was very tight, and the investment share was hardly "grabbed" — Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Group invested 1 million yuan at a valuation of about 100 million yuan.

Shortly after the seed round, in July 2018, Tencent led the 340 million yuan Pre-A round financing of Enflame, and continued to increase its investment in almost every subsequent round of financing, becoming an important strategic investor and core business customer behind the company. The prospectus shows that Tencent holds more than 20% of Enflame's shares, making it the largest external shareholder.

The participation of Tencent opened up the financing situation for Enflame: in 2019, it completed a 300 million yuan Series A financing led by Redpoint Ventures; in 2020, it completed a Series B financing of about 700 million yuan led by Wu Yue Feng Capital; in 2021, it completed a Series C financing of about 1.7 billion yuan led by CPE Yuanfeng, CICC Capital and Chunhua Capital; in 2022, the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund invested in its Series C+ round financing.

However, the test came soon. Around the end of 2022, the capital market was in a downturn, the IPO rhythm was tightened, and chip financing became difficult. At this critical moment, Shanghai International Group stepped forward to offer help.

In September 2023, Enflame Technology completed a Series D financing of more than 2 billion yuan, led by Guofang Venture Capital under Shanghai International Group, and followed by new and existing shareholders including Tencent, Meitu Inc., Wu Yue Feng Capital, Yuntai Capital, Hongzhuo Capital, Redpoint Ventures, GF Qianhe and Rui'an Dtai Capital.

At the most difficult moment, Shanghai state-owned capital gave Enflame the firmest capital support. Talking about this round of financing, Zhao Lidong is still very grateful up to now, and thinks this support is extremely precious.

A year later, Enflame Technology completed the Pre-IPO round financing of about 2.7 billion yuan, jointly led by Shanghai Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (abbreviated as SDIC IC) under Shanghai State-owned Investment and Tencent. Among them, SDIC IC Fund Phase II contributed 300 million yuan. At this point, this Shanghai state-owned capital institution completed investments at both ends of the "smile curve" for Enflame — making small investments in the early stage and investing in deterministic growth in the later stage.

From the decision of "investing 1 million yuan only after one meeting" in the angel round, to accompanying Enflame to successfully IPO today. Over the past eight years, Shanghai State-owned Investment has continuously provided resource support and strategic synergy for Enflame from multiple dimensions such as industrial ecology and business scenarios. More important than financial returns is that through this investment, Shanghai has deeply participated in and witnessed the growth of a leading domestic AI chip enterprise, adding a key piece to Shanghai's integrated circuit industry map.

Over the eight years of entrepreneurship, Enflame Technology has raised a total of nearly 10 billion yuan in the primary market. According to the prospectus, Wu Yue Feng Capital holds about 5.71% of shares, Guofang Venture Capital holds about 3.73%, Yuntai Investment holds about 3.71%, Redpoint Ventures holds about 3.32%, funds under Shanghai State-owned Investment hold about 1.64%, and organizations including Cowin Capital, IDG Capital, Haisong Capital and Yunmu Capital also hold shares respectively.

With Enflame Technology ringing the listing gong on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board, those investors who accompanied the company all the way finally got the expected return.

It's Shanghai's Turn

Shanghai Is Breeding More and More Hundred-Billion-Yuan IPOs

Looking around, the "Four Little Dragons of Shanghai AI Chips" — Enflame Technology, MetaX Integrated Circuits, Biren Technology and Iluvatar CoreX, are rising rapidly. Just as many people will ask, why this batch of hundred-billion-yuan hard tech IPOs are born in Shanghai?

The answer is not complicated. In the past few years, many AI chip entrepreneurial teams have chosen Shanghai as their first choice when settling down. Zhao Lidong and Zhang Yalin also chose to locate their company in Lingang when they decided to start their business. "For a start-up enterprise, choosing the headquarters needs to consider the forward-looking, pragmatism and efficiency of the government, followed by the business environment and industrial agglomeration." Zhao Lidong recalled, "When I came to Lingang at that time, I felt that Lingang not only had a long-term vision, but also handled affairs efficiently, which left a very deep impression on me."

For entrepreneurs, the industrial soil of a city determines how far a company can go. In Shanghai, characteristic parks such as Zhangjiang, Lingang and West Bund have realized the concept of "the enterprises on adjacent floors are your upstream and downstream partners", so that enterprises can contact their supply chain partners nearby, greatly reducing the communication and collaboration cost of hard tech entrepreneurship.

Especially in the field of integrated circuits, Shanghai has already built the most complete whole industrial chain in China — the industrial scale reached about 580 billion yuan in 2025, more than doubled in five years. In the global city ranking of the World Semiconductor Council, Shanghai ranks 4th in the world and 1st in China. Up to now, Shanghai has gathered more than 1200 integrated circuit enterprises, gathered about 40% of the national industrial talents and nearly 50% of the national innovation resources, and cultivated 38 listed enterprises on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board, ranking first in China in terms of quantity.

Zhao Lidong has a personal experience of this. When Lingang New Area was established in 2019, Enflame Technology was one of the first batch of settled enterprises. From project support to financing support, from talent guarantee to customs clearance convenience, government support runs through the whole growth cycle of Enflame. "Shanghai always embraces new technologies and new business forms with an open and inclusive attitude, providing rare growth soil for hard tech enterprises." Zhao Lidong said.

For the new generation of entrepreneurs, the biggest attraction of Shanghai lies in: it has chips, computing power, models, application scenarios, dense talent reserves, a group of patient capital willing to accompany the enterprise for a long run, and a market window facing the whole country and even the whole world. This is probably the answer to why Shanghai has harvested a large number of hundred-billion-yuan IPOs in recent years.

Enflame's eight-year story is a microcosm: the breakthrough of a hard tech enterprise cannot be separated from the technical persistence of the founding team that can stand loneliness, the repeated polishing of industrial customers in real scenarios, and more importantly, the support of a local system that is willing to go through bubbles, nurture patiently and accept long-cycle risks.

At this moment, the industrial competition among Chinese cities has never been so fierce. Just as Changxin Memory Technologies is rooted in Hefei and Yangtze Memory Technologies is rooted in Wuhan, the competition between cities is ultimately the competition between enterprises. History has repeatedly proved that one enterprise can leverage one industry, and one industry is enough to reshape the fate of a city.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Investment" (ID: pedaily2012), the author is Zhou Jiali, and 36Kr publishes this article with authorization.