The female boss who discovered and helped Zhang Xue rise to fame is about to launch an IPO.

In March this year, Zhang Xue Motorcycle won two consecutive championships in the WorldSSP class of the FIM Superbike World Championship (WSBK) Portuguese round, becoming the first Chinese motorcycle manufacturer to reach the top in this event, and its founder Zhang Xue rose to fame accordingly. Before gaining fame, Zhang Xue had a job-hunting experience starting from the grassroots level. The female Zhejiang business owner who gave him the opportunity back then was later called his "Bole" by the public. She is Ying Er, the founder and chairman of Zhejiang Apollo Sports Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Apollo").

Recently, the IPO application of Apollo, led by Ying Er, to the Beijing Stock Exchange has been accepted, and the prospectus has been disclosed simultaneously. This company, which has been manufacturing off-road motorcycles in Wuyi, Zhejiang for 20 years, is seeking to enter the capital market.

After graduating in 1996, Ying Er accumulated 7 years of work experience in the manufacturing industry and founded the "Apollo" brand in 2003. The prospectus shows that Ying Er directly holds 57% of Apollo's shares, and her husband Xu Kai directly holds 38%. The couple jointly hold 95% of the shares directly and are the joint actual controllers of the company.

Under the leadership of Ying Er, Apollo has long been operating in overseas markets, with products covering electric two-wheelers, gasoline-powered off-road motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. It has been ranked among the top ten non-road motorcycle exporters in China for three consecutive years from 2023 to 2025.

Zhang Xue worked at this company in his early years, growing from an initial motorcycle maintenance worker to the project leader responsible for developing new motorcycles. After leaving this company, he chose to start his own motorcycle business and successively founded motorcycle brands such as Kayo and Zhang Xue Motorcycle.

Led by a female entrepreneur, an off-road motorcycle IPO emerges in Wuyi

The story of Apollo dates back to 2003. In that year, Ying Er quit her stable job to start a business, but what she did at the very beginning was not motorcycles.

Before resigning, she had been working in the manufacturing industry for seven years, serving as assistant to the president of Tianxing Group Co., Ltd. and marketing director of Zhejiang Lianbang Engineering Plastics Co., Ltd.

In 2003, she founded the Apollo brand in Wuyi, Jinhua.

The early stage of entrepreneurship was not smooth. The company tried to make baby cribs, electric fireplaces, cookware and scooters, and many projects failed one after another. In order to transform to foreign trade, Ying Er, who could only speak "broken English", specifically went to Zhejiang University to take a closed TOEFL course, and then took the initiative to communicate with foreign merchants at the Canton Fair.

The turning point came around 2006. Ying Er found that a sport replica motorcycle was popular overseas. After market research, she judged that relying on Jinhua's complete auto and motorcycle parts industrial chain, the company had the opportunity to enter the off-road motorcycle market. Also at the beginning of this year, Zhejiang Apollo Motorcycle Manufacturing Co., Ltd. was officially established — which is exactly the predecessor of Apollo.

After that, she led the team to visit consumers and distributors in 43 countries around the world, brought overseas demand back to Wuyi, and integrated Chinese design elements into the products. Apollo's products later won honors such as the German Design Award and the International Automotive Brand Award, and gradually grew from a small foreign trade enterprise to a non-road leisure vehicle export enterprise.

It was also along this journey that Ying Er left a famous story of "Bole and Qianlima" that was repeatedly mentioned later.

According to local Zhejiang media reports, in 2009, 22-year-old Zhang Xue, who dropped out of junior high school, wrote a handwritten job application letter to Apollo with a pencil, admitting that he was obsessed with motorcycles and wanted to participate in races, and even said "as long as I can join the company, I don't care about salary and position". In the end, Ying Er made the decision to hire him exceptionally. Zhang Xue started as a maintenance worker on the production line, successively worked in the vehicle testing department and international marketing department, and gradually became a project manager, and also participated in the design and R&D of a small off-road vehicle.

In 2013, Zhang Xue went to Chongqing to start a business with 30 sets of accessories and 20,000 yuan in cash given by Ying Er. After that, he participated in the establishment of Kayo Motorcycle, and founded Zhang Xue Motorcycle in 2024. Many years later, the video of his early blessing for Apollo's anniversary was unearthed by netizens, and Ying Er was known by more people as a result.

After Zhang Xue Motorcycle became a hit for winning the championship in the World Motorcycle Championship this year, Ying Er also expressed her feelings on Weibo: "Back then I didn't train Zhang Xue to be a racing master, but trained him to be a master of motorcycle manufacturing. Congratulations to Zhang Xue, and congratulations to Zhang Xue Motorcycle for winning the championship."

In addition to this story, Apollo itself has continued to invest in R&D. The company owns three brands, and in recent years it has actively promoted the transformation of products from gasoline power to electrification, launching the RFN series of electric off-road motorcycles. In April 2026, the company's team also won the championship in the FIA F4 Chinese Championship held at the Shanghai International Circuit.

According to data from the China Motorcycle Chamber of Commerce, from 2023 to 2025, Apollo ranked among the top ten non-road motorcycle exporters in China for three consecutive years; according to data from GGII, in 2025, the company's global market share of electric off-road motorcycles was about 15.06%.

A small foreign trade enterprise from Wuyi has thus gone through 20 years and arrived at the gate of the Beijing Stock Exchange.

Sold 180,000 units in one year

Looking through the prospectus, Apollo's growth in recent years has been rising step by step. In 2023, its operating revenue was 281 million yuan, and the net profit attributable to shareholders was 41.8434 million yuan; in 2024, its operating revenue was 385 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.96%, and the net profit attributable to shareholders was 43.1781 million yuan; in 2025, its operating revenue was 588 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 52.49%, and the net profit attributable to shareholders was 67.0183 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 55.21%. Over the three years, the revenue has more than doubled.

However, the growth reached an inflection point in 2026. In the first half of the year, the company's operating revenue was 307 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.78%; but the net profit attributable to shareholders was about 27 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of only 14.12%, and the non-recurring profit and loss deducted net profit attributable to shareholders was about 24.03 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14.7%. The comprehensive gross profit margin also dropped from 26.88% in the same period of the previous year to 21.74%.

While revenue is rising, profits are declining. The company explained in the prospectus that this is mainly due to the year-on-year decline in the gross profit margin of its main business, which is affected by the appreciation of the RMB and changes in the sales structure.

90% of the company's revenue comes from overseas markets.

From 2023 to 2025, the proportion of the company's overseas sales revenue in the main business revenue was 99.14%, 99.28% and 99.14% respectively, and it still reached 97.45% in the first quarter of 2026. Among them, Europe is the core market, accounting for about 67.92% of the main business revenue in 2025, and North America accounts for about 20.70%.

Among them, OEM revenue accounts for more than half. In 2025, the company's ODM revenue accounted for 61.77% of the main business revenue, and it still reached 55.5% in the first quarter of 2026.

In terms of products, Apollo's main business covers off-road motorcycles, complete non-road leisure vehicles and accessories, which are divided into three categories according to power nature and application scenarios: electric two-wheelers (including electric off-road motorcycles and electric racing vehicles), gasoline-powered motorcycles (mainly gasoline-driven off-road motorcycles) and all-terrain vehicles (including gasoline-driven and electric products).

The total sales volume of the company's products increased from about 69,900 units in 2023 to 188,300 units in 2025; the momentum in 2026 is still strong, with sales exceeding 40,000 units in the first quarter alone.

Among them, electric two-wheelers are the fastest growing segment. In 2023, the revenue of this business accounted for 42.78% of the main business revenue, rose to 47.69% in 2025, and further reached 54.38% in the first quarter of 2026.

In addition to adult off-road electric motorcycles, Apollo has also specifically entered the youth market. For young riders, the company has launched a series of electric off-road motorcycles such as "War Kid" and "Little Warrior", and set the brand positioning of "enlightenment mentor for off-road electric motorcycles".

For this listing, Apollo plans to raise about 397 million yuan, more than 70% of which will be invested in the new base of electric off-road motorcycles and electric drive systems and intelligent upgrading of production capacity.

Zhang Xue becomes popular, the track also becomes hot

In the "financing history" section, Apollo's record is almost blank. From 2006 to 2022, the company did not conduct a single external equity financing for 16 years, relying on its own cash flow rollover and the investment of the couple.

The only change in equity also took place internally. In August 2023, the company increased its capital to 27.56 million shares, and all the 1.38 million newly added shares were subscribed by the employee stock ownership platform for 12.5166 million yuan, equivalent to 9.07 yuan per share, and distributed to 25 core employees.

In addition to giving benefits to employees, Apollo also distributed money to shareholders before the IPO: in May 2026, the company's shareholders' meeting passed the 2025 annual profit distribution plan, based on the total share capital of 27.56 million shares, distributing 12 yuan for every 10 shares, with a total cash distribution of 33.072 million yuan, which was completed in early June, accounting for about 21.75% of the cumulative net profit in the last three years. According to the shareholding ratio, about 31.42 million yuan of which went to the couple Ying Er and Xu Kai. The company explained in the prospectus that this proportion is relatively low, and it does not belong to the sudden clearance-style dividend before listing.

Interestingly, what made Apollo appear frequently in financial reports is not itself, but the "mechanic" who walked out of Wuyi 13 years ago. Zhang Xue Motorcycle, founded by Zhang Xue, has pushed the motorcycle track back to the capital market.

For a long time, motorcycles have not been in the sight of the primary market. This industry has a large volume and many players, but with thin profits and a visible ceiling, investors prefer to focus on new energy vehicles and artificial intelligence. Zhang Xue Motorcycle broke this prejudice: a self-developed three-cylinder engine can beat Ducati and Yamaha on the track, which shows that domestic motorcycles have touched the threshold of high-end pricing. When the technology premium is established, the valuation logic of this industry with a huge consumer base is no longer just manufacturing, but brand and technology.

According to data from IT Juzi, from 2024 to the first quarter of 2026, the total financing amount in China's motorcycle sector is close to 2.7 billion yuan, of which nearly 800 million yuan was in the first quarter of 2026 alone, exceeding the total amount of 2025.

The most popular target in the track is exactly Zhang Xue Motorcycle. In July 2024, only three months after the company was established, Gaoxin Capital invested 20 million yuan in the angel round at a valuation of 100 million yuan; in January 2026, Zhejiang Venture Capital led the A round of 90 million yuan through two funds, with a post-investment valuation of 1.09 billion yuan; by August 2026, HSG exclusively invested 150 million yuan, and the post-investment valuation rushed to 6 billion yuan. In two years, the company's valuation has grown from 100 million yuan to 6 billion yuan.

A company more similar to Apollo is Sur-Ron Technology, which makes electric off-road motorcycles. This company was started by a group of off-road motorcycle enthusiasts from modification, and its products are sold to more than 60 countries. In September 2025, it completed the B-round restructuring of several hundred million yuan, led by Guanyan Investment, followed by Yuanjing Capital and others.

Another group of capitals bet on smart electric motorcycles that are closer to urban commuting. OMOWAY, founded by He Tao, co-founder of XPeng Motors, has received four consecutive rounds of financing since June 2025, with ZhenFund, HSG, Star Voyage Capital, and Lisi Capital entering the market one after another. CATL also led a round in July 2026, with a single round amount of tens of millions of dollars.

MotoTec Mobility, which focuses on urban commuting, received strategic investment from Yuhang State Investment under Zhejiang State-owned Assets in 2023, and received investment from Saize Capital in November 2025; Suzhou First Drive Technology, which was established only in March 2025, completed three rounds of financing within one year, two of which came from SkyWorks Venture Capital under Dreame Technology; Shanghai Paidian Technology received hundreds of millions of yuan led by Qionglai Light Power with Chengdu state-owned assets background in February 2026.

The track is hot, and the window of the capital market is also opening. In addition to Apollo, which is seeking to go public this time, Tailg Technology also officially submitted its listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in January 2026.

This article is from WeChat official account "ChinaVenture", author: Li Man, published with authorization from 36Kr.