It may be hard to believe, but a leading player in the robotics niche has removed the word "robot" from its corporate name just as it gears up for a Hong Kong IPO attempt. In today's capital markets, robotics is practically a traffic magnet, with countless companies eager to slap on the label to command higher valuations. This firm, however, is deliberately bucking the trend.
On August 18, Tianjin Chenxing Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Chenxing Technology") filed an updated prospectus to make another push toward a Hong Kong listing. Formerly known as Tianjin Atomobot Robotics Co., Ltd., with Atomobot as its core commercial brand, the company holds the top spot in the domestic parallel robot market. Despite this championship status, it has yet to fully shake off losses. According to the prospectus, after finally turning profitable in 2025, the company slid back into the red in the first half of 2026, with losses ballooning by 506%. This setback is directly tied to its aggressive expansion into new product lines. So why would Chenxing Technology opt for a name change at such a pivotal IPO juncture, and what lies behind its fresh dive into losses right after achieving profitability?
A College Entrepreneur's Struggle and a Senior's Investment That Built a National Champion
Back in 2015, Yang Haoyong, founder of Guazi Used Cars, decided to invest in a startup project from a Tianjin University junior on the very same day he heard about it. Little did anyone predict that this decisive bet would nurture a domestic industry leader. The company Yang invested in was none other than Chenxing Technology, founded by Liu Songtao. Public records show Liu, born in 1987 in Langfang, Hebei, pursued a bachelor's and master's degree at Tianjin University from 2006 to 2013. His entrepreneurial path was seeded early; starting in his senior undergraduate year, he delved into parallel robots in the lab, and his graduation project involved co-developing a prototype for a novel four-degree-of-freedom parallel robot.
During his graduate studies, Liu visited explosive factories and saw that many heavy, hazardous, and repetitive tasks still relied on manual labor. He then explored sectors like new energy, daily chemicals, 3C, food, and pharmaceuticals, discovering a common thread: materials were often light, small, scattered, and messy, yet production speeds had to be exceptionally high. Driven by a desire to free workers from dangerous, high-frequency, and monotonous jobs, Liu launched Chenxing Technology even before completing his master's degree. The early days were tough, marked by inexperience in management and unclear market positioning, pushing the company to the brink. At the time, demand for parallel robots was actually robust, but domestic clients doubted the reliability of local equipment and preferred costlier imported alternatives. Just as survival seemed uncertain, Liu's Tianjin University senior, Yang Haoyong, stepped in with an investment, marking a turning point for the firm.
Following this, Liu shifted strategy to target benchmark factories, identifying those with product needs, refining offerings to match requirements, and providing free trial units with a promise of on-site maintenance within 24 hours. Through dependable quality and swift service, Chenxing Technology carved a niche in a market long dominated by overseas players and entered a phase of rapid growth. By 2016, the company had started developing its own control systems, added proprietary machine vision in 2017, and achieved a full-stack closed loop of "control, vision, and execution" by 2019. It subsequently rolled out heavy-load collaborative robots, high-speed SCARA robots, and embodied intelligent robots, with continuous technological upgrades. The Hong Kong prospectus reveals that since 2023, Chenxing Technology has ranked first among domestic Chinese manufacturers in global parallel robot market share; based on 2025 shipment volumes, it leads China's parallel robot sector with a 20.4% share and ranks second globally with 7.7%.
Valuation Surges Over 90-Fold in a Decade, Yet Profitability Proves Fleeting
Following the investment from Yang, Chenxing Technology went through multiple funding rounds, with its valuation climbing steadily. According to the prospectus, based on post-investment valuation at the time of agreement signing, the angel round in June 2015 valued the company at 27 million yuan, while the D round in October 2025 brought it to 2.5 billion yuan—a more than 90-fold increase over ten years. However, this valuation surge hasn't fully masked underlying fundamentals. From 2023 to 2025, revenue stood at 93.491 million yuan, 135 million yuan, and 253 million yuan, respectively, with net profits of -39.253 million yuan, -47.068 million yuan, and 739,000 yuan, marking its first profitable year in 2025. Notably, that profit hinged on roughly 8.9 million yuan in government subsidies. In the first half of 2026, revenue reached 135 million yuan, but the company posted a loss of 28.802 million yuan, a 506% expansion compared to a 4.75 million yuan loss in the same period last year. Chenxing Technology anticipates maintaining losses through 2026.
The company attributes the widened first-half loss primarily to increased R&D spending tied to developing new products like embodied intelligent robots and space manipulator arms, alongside IPO-related expenses that further deepened the deficit. Its current product portfolio spans four series: parallel robots, high-speed SCARA robots, heavy-load collaborative robots, and embodied intelligent robots, serving industries such as food and beverages, daily chemicals, pharmaceuticals, new energy, 3C, and automotive. Among these, the embodied intelligent robot line, officially launched in 2025, is the latest addition yet carries the highest expectations. The prospectus notes that these robots combine high load capacity with exceptional dexterity, with bionic dual arms adaptable to scenarios from heavy-duty handling to precision assembly, while a multi-sensor fusion system ensures safe human-machine collaboration. By 2026, the company had completed systematic upgrades, with an open architecture allowing for expanded AI-driven functions, signaling a shift from an "industrial robot expert" to an "embodied intelligent robot expert."
This heavy R&D investment has quickly borne fruit, with revenue from embodied intelligent robots jumping from 351,000 yuan in 2025 to 4.689 million yuan in the first half of 2026, lifting its revenue share from 0.1% to 3.5%. As the embodied intelligent robot sector heats up, Chenxing Technology's early positioning not only converts prior technical expertise into market competitiveness but also positions the business as a potential core growth engine, providing a compelling narrative for its Hong Kong IPO push.
From "Atomobot" to "Chenxing Technology": What's Behind the Strategic Shift?
Notably, at this critical IPO juncture, Chenxing Technology has rebranded from "Atomobot" to "Chenxing Technology," though the prospectus offers no direct explanation. Yet, clues emerge from its business evolution and global strategy. From a revenue structure perspective, robot hardware remains the foundation, but robotics solutions are gaining stronger momentum, with their revenue share climbing from 29.8% in 2023 to 34.3% in 2025, and further to 34.7% in the first half of 2026. Against this backdrop, dropping "robot" from the name softens the emphasis on hardware alone, aligning the brand with the rising share of solutions and its official positioning as an "AI + robotics technology platform."
Beyond business alignment, the name change also aims to clear hurdles for global expansion. According to IPO fundraising plans, global expansion is a core priority, targeting East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America from 2026 to 2029. "Atomobot" draws from the classic Japanese anime IP "Astro Boy," which enjoys immense recognition across East and Southeast Asia. Known for its "100,000 horsepower and seven superpowers," the name symbolizes strength, and using it could quickly reinforce customer awareness of the products. One of Chenxing Technology's founders, Song Tao, once remarked, "Our high-speed parallel robots, like the iron-armed Astro Boy, create value for businesses across countless industries." However, as the company expands overseas, continuing to operate under "Atomobot" as the legal entity name for foreign subsidiaries could invite trademark disputes, hurdles in business registration, or litigation risks tied to commercialization rights. In contrast, "Chenxing Technology," a more hard-tech-oriented title, not only mitigates compliance concerns but also better suits its positioning for selling robotics products and high-end services to global industrial clients.
Additionally, when Chenxing Technology was founded in 2013, it originally operated as Chenxing (Tianjin) Automation Equipment Co., Ltd. Reviving the "Chenxing" name preserves the brand's historical lineage while uniting commercial strategy with cultural continuity. With this updated Hong Kong prospectus, Chenxing Technology is knocking on the door anew under a fresh identity. Whether it successfully lists and when it truly achieves sustainable profitability remain questions worth watching closely.