- Taizhou-based automation firm reaches HK$13.1 billion market cap after strong market debut
- Company built its business around lightweight manufacturing sectors from food to semiconductors
Robot Phoenix (翼菲科技), a Zhejiang industrial robotics manufacturer, surged 76% in its Hong Kong trading debut on May 18, giving the Chinese industrial robotics maker a market value of about HK$13.1 billion ($1.67 billion) as investors continued piling into automation and embodied AI-related stocks.
The company, listed under stock code 06871.HK, opened at HK$54.65 versus its IPO price of HK$30.5. Shares closed at HK$53.75 today, up roughly 76% from the offer price.
Founded in Jinan in 2012 by Tsinghua University PhD graduate Zhang Sai, Robot Phoenix relocated its headquarters to Taizhou, a city in Zhejiang, in 2025, from Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province.
The company focuses on automation systems for lightweight manufacturing industries rather than heavy industrial sectors such as automotive assembly.
Its product lineup includes parallel robots, SCARA robots, six-axis robots, wafer-handling robots and mobile robots, alongside in-house control systems and machine vision technologies.
Customers include BYD, CATL, Lens Technology and Unilever, with operations spanning 25 countries.
From chips to food
Robot Phoenix targets manufacturing tasks such as high-speed sorting, precision assembly and flexible material handling across industries including food, consumer goods, electronics, pharmaceuticals, new energy and semiconductors.
Based on 2025 revenue, the company ranked fourth among China’s lightweight industrial robot and automation solution providers, generating 387 million yuan in revenue and holding a 1.4% domestic market share, according to company disclosures.
The company’s early years were marked by financial strain. Its five-member founding team initially operated from an eight-square-meter office in an urban village in Jinan, often running cutting machines late at night to avoid disturbing neighboring businesses.
Within three months, the team built its first parallel robot prototype.
A comeback story
In 2016, Robot Phoenix nearly ran out of cash after taking on a large systems integration project that required significant upfront spending on raw materials.
The company at one point struggled to pay salaries until Zhang, the founder, sold an apartment to buy out other co-founders’ shares and keep the business afloat before securing the life-saving Series A financing.
Unlike many robotics firms focused on a single category, Robot Phoenix expanded across multiple robot types in an effort to become a one-stop automation supplier for manufacturers.
The company says its control systems can coordinate multiple robots simultaneously across production lines, reducing integration complexity for customers.
In 2025, Robot Phoenix also unveiled its first humanoid robot, “Hogene,” which uses a wheeled-and-lifting structure rather than a traditional bipedal design.
The robot is equipped with the company’s self-developed “YiBrain” multimodal AI model, which can translate natural language instructions into operational tasks.
