--- title: "\"The first stock of decision-making intelligence\" rings the bell, a VC's AI investment closed loop" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/290923611.md" description: "On June 26, 2026, WENGE AI was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the code “”, with an IPO market value of approximately HKD 10.51 billion. The company was oversubscribed nearly 6,000 times and introduced several cornerstone investors. As a decision intelligence service provider, it leads the market share, backed by a deep financing history with multiple investments from institutions such as Zhongke Chuangxing. This listing marks the completion of the VC AI investment closed loop, alongside projects like Zhipu and Yushi Technology, which are also part of the Haidian technology achievement transformation projects" datetime: "2026-06-26T06:33:11.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/290923611.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290923611.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/290923611.md) --- # "The first stock of decision-making intelligence" rings the bell, a VC's AI investment closed loop On June 26, 2026, WENGE AI officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with the stock code "01956.HK". This code hides a piece of history. In 1956, the Dartmouth Conference first proposed the concept of "Artificial Intelligence," marking the beginning of artificial intelligence as an independent discipline. In the same year, the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was established. WENGE AI was founded by a team of scientists from the Institute of Automation, focusing on decision intelligence, and the number "1956" coincidentally aligns with its technological genes. A company emerging from the laboratory uses a historical coordinate as its code, carrying a sense of tribute. Based on the offering price of HKD 60.70 per share, the company's IPO market value is approximately HKD 10.51 billion. According to ZhiShi Consulting data, based on 2025 revenue, WENGE AI ranks first among enterprise-level large model-driven decision intelligence service providers in China, with a market share of 10.2%. During the offering period, the company's public offering in Hong Kong was oversubscribed by 5,966.78 times. This IPO introduced six cornerstone investors, including China Orient International, Harvest International, Qianhai International, Guohui (Hong Kong) Holdings, Huatai Capital, and Minyin International, collectively subscribing approximately USD 31 million, corresponding to 4.0006 million shares, accounting for about 26.97% of the total shares offered. More noteworthy is the financing journey behind WENGE AI. From May 2018 to June 2025, the company completed a total of 10 rounds of financing, raising over 1.2 billion yuan, with investors including national-level funds, local industrial funds, and leading market institutions. Among the shareholders, the name Zhongke Chuangxing appears multiple times. Coincidentally, just before and after WENGE AI rang the bell, the popular star projects Zhipu and Yushi Technology also successively listed on the Hong Kong stock market. The shareholder lists of the three companies all include Zhongke Chuangxing. In fact, Zhongke Chuangxing has already achieved five IPOs in the first half of this year. Among them, Zhipu, Yushi Technology, and WENGE AI all fall within the "golden circle" of technology achievement transformation in Haidian, Beijing. What investment storyline lies behind this? **"The first stock of decision intelligence," raised 10 rounds** The story of WENGE AI began at the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2017, shortly after the national policy allowing researchers to retain their research positions while starting their own businesses was implemented, a wave of entrepreneurial energy was released among researchers. Wang Lei, Luo Yin, and Zeng Dajun from the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, relying on over a decade of accumulation in data intelligence, artificial intelligence, and operations research, jointly founded WENGE AI. In 2017, Zhongke Chuangxing turned its attention to "natural language processing and knowledge graphs." The team began searching for top talents in this field domestically and quickly identified WENGE AI at the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but the investment decision was not smooth sailing. At that time, the decision intelligence track that WENGE AI was engaged in was still in its early stages, and the commercialization path was unclear. The focus of repeated discussions within Zhongke Chuangxing was singular: a big data company emerging from the Institute of Automation with a solid technical foundation, but could it succeed in the market? After in-depth research and investigation, the Investment Committee of Zhongke Chuangxing unanimously approved the Series A investment in WENGE AI. In May 2018, WENGE AI completed its Series A financing led by Zhongke Chuangxing, with Blue Ocean Capital participating. Since then, Zhongke Chuangxing has continued to invest through its Beijing Phase I and Phase II funds. In May 2019, the company completed its Series B financing, with Zhongke Chuangxing as an existing shareholder making additional investments. In addition to investment, Zhongke Chuangxing has continuously linked WENGE AI with industry players and high-end talent resources. The company's core executive team has participated in the "Zhongke Chuangxing·Hard Technology Champion Camp" and the "Hard Technology Exploration Program," engaging in deep exchanges and collaborations with leading enterprises and hard technology entrepreneurs. Subsequently, WENGE AI attracted more capital. In August 2020, it completed its Series C financing, led by Shenzhen Capital Group, with participation from Guoke Capital, Guoke Jiahe, and others. In May 2021, it completed its Series D financing, with Nanxin Investment, Shenzhen Daily, and CMB International joining in. In October 2022, it completed its Series E financing. By the end of 2024, the Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund exclusively invested 100 million yuan. In June 2025, it completed its Series F+ financing, with the Beijing Shijingshan District Modern Innovation Industry Development Fund participating. WENGE AI initially entered complex information scenarios such as media and government affairs, gradually forming capabilities in data analysis, business ontology modeling, intelligent judgment, and multi-agent simulation, launching the "Tianhu" super-intelligent computing platform and the "Wenhai" global open-source big data platform. In February 2023, the project "Application and Promotion of Smart Media and Internet Big Data Technology," jointly undertaken with the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, successfully passed the first phase of acceptance, becoming the first "Hongguang Special Project" of the Institute of Automation. The moment the team is most proud of was during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. As a member unit of the research group participating in the national key R&D program, dozens of employees collaborated in Beijing, Xi'an, and the main media center of the Winter Olympics, contributing technological strength to the Winter Olympics with multilingual global communication technology. From 2023 to 2025, the company's revenue grew from 249.7 million yuan to 405.3 million yuan, an increase of over 60%, while the gross profit margin improved from 44.0% to 51.2%. The company has served over 650 enterprises and government clients, with a net revenue retention rate of 139.5% in 2025, and significant growth in repurchases and additional purchases from existing clients. As of the end of 2025, the company had orders worth 290 million yuan on hand, with new contracts signed throughout the year totaling 530 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 73.9%. The R&D team consists of 250 employees, accounting for 43.9% of the total full-time staff, including over 30 senior AI scientists. **Three IPOs, One Investment Main Line** In the first half of 2026, Zhongke Chuangxing achieved three IPOs in Beijing, including WENGE AI, Zhipu, and Yushi Technology, spanning the three major tracks of natural language processing, autonomous driving, and decision intelligence. Although they appear to be dispersed, they actually unfold along the same main line The technical starting point of this main line can be traced back to 2012. That year, AlexNet won the ImageNet competition, and deep learning moved from the academic fringe to the center of industry. In the same year, Mi Lei learned from Zhu Jiajun, a member of the founding team of Google's autonomous driving project, that Google was using deep learning for autonomous driving. He realized that AI was no longer just a laboratory concept but a key technological infrastructure on the eve of industrialization. In 2016, Zhongke Chuangxing began to follow the underlying logic of "data, computing power, and algorithms," starting from the data and computing power ends, such as sensors and chips, and gradually extending to the algorithm and application layers. Yushi Technology is one of the earliest projects to invest in this main line. In 2016, Wu Gansha, the former director of Intel China Research Institute, left Intel after nearly 16 years to start a business. At that time, autonomous driving was still a field full of uncertainties globally, and most institutions held a wait-and-see attitude. The Zhongke Chuangxing team had been paying attention to the field of unmanned driving for many years. Mi Lei, who came from an optical background, initially focused on lidar and then expanded to a full technical system including perception, decision-making, execution, computing power, and communication. After long-term research, the team expressed optimism about the development prospects of autonomous driving. In April 2016, Yushi Technology completed a 30 million yuan angel round of financing, with Zhongke Chuangxing as the main investor, which continued to invest in three rounds, totaling nearly 100 million yuan. On May 20, 2026, Yushi Technology was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the "first stock of full-scene L4-level autonomous driving," with a closing market value exceeding 9 billion Hong Kong dollars. The investment in Zhipu occurred at the lowest point of the AI industry. In 2018, financing for artificial intelligence generally encountered a chill. Zhongke Chuangxing judged through industry research that natural language processing and knowledge graphs would be the most important technological directions following machine vision, and quickly locked in the Zhipu team from Tsinghua University. After initial contact, Zhongke Chuangxing believed that the Zhipu team had a solid foundation and significant resource advantages in the field of natural language processing, judging that it had long-term development potential. At the end of 2018, Zhongke Chuangxing finalized the investment amount and plan with the Zhipu team—40 million yuan in the angel round. After one or two years of tracking and support, in the first half of 2019, Zhongke Chuangxing assisted the team in establishing the company and became one of the founding shareholders of Zhipu. Extending the timeline makes the context clearer. In 2016, investment was made in autonomous driving; in 2017, layout in optical communication; in 2018, investment in quantum computing and knowledge graphs; in 2019, investment in optical computing, optical communication, and natural language processing. Mi Lei's judgment is that the data and computing power of the AI era will increasingly rely on photonic chips for support. At the end of 2022, after the explosive popularity of ChatGPT, Zhongke Chuangxing launched a more comprehensive layout around AI Infra, AI models, AI applications, embodied intelligence, and AI4S. In the AI Infra field, investments were made in large model training and inference acceleration company Qingcheng Jizhi, next-generation TPU company Chaoweiyuan, and edge AI chip company Yezhixin. In the AI model field, investments were made in Zidong Taichu, among others. In the AI application field, investments were made in Agent company Jidian Qiyuan and consumer smart hardware company Weiguang Dianliang, among others In the field of embodied intelligence, investments have been made in Zhiyuan Robotics, Xingyuan Intelligence, Yuansheng Technology, and Songying Technology. In the AI4S field, investments have been made in DeepSense Technology and others. Currently, the capabilities of large models are experiencing an unprecedented leap, breaking through the critical point from "usable" to "easy to use" in key areas such as language, multimodal, video, code, and tool invocation. A significant window of opportunity for large model dividends has opened, and Zhongke Chuangxing continues to make investments. **"Keeping the cold bench warm"** Behind three popular IPOs, there is actually a common point: they all originated from an area of about 2.5 square kilometers in Haidian, Beijing: south of Tsinghua University, east of Peking University, west of Xueyuan Road, and north of Dazhongsi. Wang Huiwen, co-founder of Meituan, once reviewed his investment portfolio returns and pointed out this range, calling it the "golden circle" for technology achievement transformation in Haidian, Beijing. Zhongke Chuangxing's office is located within this circle. Founded in 2013, Zhongke Chuangxing's office was initially in Xi'an, relying on the research resources of the Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for technology achievement transformation. As internal projects progressed, the team began to look towards broader sources of technology. In 2016, Zhongke Chuangxing made a key decision to establish an office in Beijing. At that time, most investment institutions placed their Beijing offices in Guomao or Financial Street. However, Zhongke Chuangxing chose to deeply participate in the co-construction of Zhongguancun Intelligent Manufacturing Street, becoming the first early-stage investment institution to settle there, renting its first office in Beijing at the Tsinghua Garden Hotel near the southeast gate of Tsinghua University. "The office environment was very rudimentary at that time, and at first glance, it didn't look much like an investment institution's office. But this was the best choice, being closer to universities and research institutes, and closer to top scientists, as well as the most active place for knowledge value," recalled Mi Lei. Behind this location choice is Zhongke Chuangxing's consistent "ESK" value investment philosophy. It evaluates hard technology projects from three dimensions: knowledge value, economic value, and social value, with knowledge value being the core of this logic. However, this path has not been easy. At its founding in 2013, when business model innovation was at its peak, Zhongke Chuangxing chose a path of technology achievement transformation that was largely overlooked. When entering Beijing in 2016, "hard technology" was still an unfamiliar concept. The office of Zhongke Chuangxing's founding partners, Mi Lei and Li Hao, was named "Wall Facers," a reference from "The Three-Body Problem," reflecting their investment trajectory: choosing to patiently persevere during times of non-consensus. Fortunately, the ten-year perseverance of the "Wall Facers" has finally welcomed a breakthrough moment. With the arrival of the era of hard technology and artificial intelligence, the most important production factors are shifting from land, machines, and capital to knowledge, technology, and intellectual productivity. The dependence of capital on knowledge is increasing, and the voice of core research talents in the industry is becoming more significant. Recently, three projects have successively landed on the Hong Kong stock market, not only validating Zhongke Chuangxing's foresight in technology achievement transformation but also confirming its long-term investment philosophy: daring to "keep the cold bench warm," firmly supporting researchers in entrepreneurship when the technology has not yet been fully recognized by the market. As of now, among the over 600 hard technology enterprises incubated by the Zhongke Chuangxing team, about 150 are located in Beijing, most of which come from research institutes under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as well-known universities such as Tsinghua and Peking University ### Related Stocks - [01956.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/01956.HK.md) ## Related News & Research - [1 of the Most Interesting AI Stocks in the Market Isn’t a Tech Company](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290606417.md) - [This new research challenges nearly every big AI narrative of 2026](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290939534.md) - [An Interview with Barchart's AI Market Analyst CARL](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290709753.md) - [AllianceBernstein's CEO says you should be worried about an AI bubble](https://longbridge.com/en/news/291029816.md) - [OmniDimension Launches End-to-End AI Automation Platform for The Customer Engagement](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290661905.md)