Qunke Technology Clears HKEX Listing Hearing: First 'Hard Tech' IPO Breakthrough from Hangzhou's 'Six Little Dragons'

Breaking the Ice: Qunhe Technology Clears HKEX Listing Review—The First Ray of Warmth Amid a Deep Freeze in “Hard-Tech” IPOs

The Hong Kong IPO market has been dormant for far too long. Since 2022, a confluence of pressures—including the U.S. Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest-rate hikes, spillover effects from geopolitical risks, and regulatory uncertainty surrounding audit oversight of U.S.-listed Chinese companies—has significantly slowed new share issuance. In 2023, only 49 IPOs were completed in Hong Kong, raising less than HK$25 billion—its lowest annual total in a decade. Against this backdrop, on March 29, the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) disclosed that Hangzhou-based spatial intelligence company Qunhe Technology (Manycore Tech Inc.) had formally updated its post-hearing information pack—signaling successful clearance of its listing hearing. While seemingly routine, this procedural milestone carries symbolic weight far exceeding that of a single company’s listing: it marks not only the first success among the “Hangzhou Six Little Dragons,” but also a rare, substantive breakthrough for mainland China’s hard-tech enterprises seeking Hong Kong listings over the past year—sending a clear signal of warming sentiment from both policymakers and capital markets.

Technical Anchoring: The Valuation Logic Behind the “World’s First Spatial Intelligence IPO”

Qunhe Technology is no conventional SaaS provider; rather, it is an AI-driven infrastructure platform for spatial digitization. Its core capabilities span three integrated technology stacks: (1) real-time 3D reconstruction and semantic segmentation algorithms powered by deep learning; (2) a lightweight, web-native 3D engine (Kaedim); and (3) a BIM+AI collaborative platform covering the full building lifecycle. As disclosed in its post-hearing information pack, Qunhe serves over 300,000 designers and more than 2,000 real-estate developers and EPC contractors—and is deeply embedded in the design-construction-operations closed loops of industry leaders including Vanke, Longfor, and Gemdale. Crucially, its technology has transcended consumer-grade modeling to penetrate industrial applications: in BYD’s factory digital twin project, Qunhe achieved millimeter-precision equipment localization and dynamic production-line simulation; in the Xiong’an New Area’s CIM (City Information Modeling) platform, its engine supports real-time rendering and spatial analytics for over one million architectural components.

This quadruple convergence of “AI + 3D + BIM + SaaS” confers exceptional irreplaceability in today’s industrial context. On one hand, China’s real-estate sector is shifting from scale-driven expansion to quality-focused upgrading—driving urgent demand for high-precision spatial data foundations in areas such as stock renovation, affordable housing construction, and urban health checks. On the other, emerging fields—including intelligent manufacturing, smart energy, and low-altitude economy—increasingly require rigorous digital mapping of physical space. Qunhe’s technological penetration thus serves as the critical interface bridging macro-level policy tailwinds with micro-level industrial implementation. The joint sponsorship by J.P. Morgan and China Construction Bank International is no coincidence: the former reflects international capital’s long-term allocation logic toward frontier technology sectors, while the latter signals state-backed financial institutions’ targeted support for national strategic science and technology capabilities—jointly establishing the first authoritative valuation benchmark for the nascent “spatial intelligence” sector.

Policy Resonance: From the “Six Little Dragons” to the Launch of a New Hard-Tech IPO Cycle

Since being collectively spotlighted by official media in 2023, the “Hangzhou Six Little Dragons”—Qunhe Technology, Unitree Robotics, Deepwise Medical, Yunshen Chu, BrainCo, and Bluepha Microbiotech—have become emblematic of China’s hard-tech innovation cluster. Yet prior to Qunhe’s success, the other five remained at pre-IPO funding or strategic integration stages, with unclear listing roadmaps. Qunhe’s pioneering clearance represents a pivotal leap—from conceptual consensus to capital-market validation. Underpinning its success is pragmatic regulatory adjustment: HKEX has progressively refined Chapter 18C (the listing rules for specialist technology companies), explicitly classifying “spatial computing” and “digital twins” under the sub-category of “next-generation information technology,” while adopting a more flexible evaluation framework for R&D intensity (minimum 15%), patent quality, and commercialization milestones. Qunhe’s 2023 R&D expenditure accounted for 28.6% of revenue; it holds 137 invention patents; and its compound annual revenue growth rate over the past three years reached 41.2%—fully aligning with the new regulatory orientation.

More profoundly, this clearance coincides with the deepening reform of China’s domestic capital markets. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) identified in its 2024 work priorities “supporting IPOs for enterprises in frontier fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum science and technology, and spatial information.” Concurrently, the Shanghai Stock Exchange revised its guidelines for evaluating sci-tech attributes, emphasizing “technology industrialization capability” over mere revenue scale. Qunhe thus becomes a concrete embodiment of policy intent—demonstrating that regulators are not offering blanket encouragement for “hard tech,” but rather precisely targeting those enterprises that have already achieved technical productization, scalable deployment across real-world scenarios, and commercial sustainability: the “genuinely hard-core.” The maturation of this screening mechanism will effectively curb speculative hype and foster differentiated positioning between A-share and Hong Kong markets: the A-share market focuses on mature-stage hard-tech firms, while Hong Kong assumes the vital role of incubating early-commercialization frontier technologies.

Valuation Anchoring: Transmission Effects on the Hang Seng Tech Index and Related A-Share Sectors

Should Qunhe successfully list, its market performance will generate significant valuation anchoring effects. First, as the world’s first listed company with “spatial intelligence” as its exclusive core business, its issue valuation and subsequent price-to-sales (PS) or price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) multiples will serve as the primary global benchmark for investors assessing peer technology companies. Currently, globally comparable firms—including Unity (U.S., broader scope but 3D engine–centric) and Bentley Systems (France, focused on infrastructure BIM)—command 2024 expected PS multiples of 5.2x and 3.8x, respectively. Given Qunhe’s leadership in AI-native 3D generation, market consensus anticipates its issue PS multiple falling within a 6–8x range—directly lifting the valuation floor for sub-sectors such as computer vision and industrial software within the Hang Seng Tech Index.

Second, it will exert a “mirror-pull effect” on the A-share market. Valuations for A-share construction informatics firms (e.g., Guanglian Da, Pinming Co.) and computer vision players (e.g., ArcSoft, Danghong Tech) have long been depressed—largely due to the absence of a globally recognized, technologically distinctive benchmark enterprise. Qunhe’s Hong Kong listing will prompt domestic investors to reassess value distribution across the spatial computing value chain: upstream sensor and chip suppliers (e.g., Will Semiconductor, SmartSens); midstream algorithm platforms (e.g., SenseTime, CloudWalk); and downstream application integrators (e.g., Guanglian Da, Shanghai Construction Group Digital Company) may all undergo systematic re-rating. Notably, Qunhe’s technology stack closely aligns with major national infrastructure initiatives—including the “East Data, West Computing” project and “Urban Brain” programs—potentially accelerating order flow into the A-share supply chain.

Conclusion: After the Ice Breaks—Is This a Warm Current or Just a Ripple?

Qunhe Technology’s HKEX listing clearance is no isolated event. It is the inevitable outcome of a triple convergence: recovering Hong Kong market liquidity, stabilizing U.S.-China audit oversight arrangements, and intensifying domestic policy support for hard-tech innovation. Yet we must remain clear-eyed: the success of a single enterprise cannot reverse a market cycle. A genuine “new cycle” will only be confirmed when a replicable IPO model emerges—one defined by sufficiently high technical barriers, sufficiently clear commercial pathways, and sufficiently transparent corporate governance—enabling a steady stream of hard-tech enterprises to enter the public markets. Only when the second and third companies specializing in “spatial intelligence,” “embodied AI,” or “synthetic biology” follow suit on Hong Kong exchanges can we confidently declare: China’s capital-market spring for hard-tech innovation has truly arrived. For now, Qunhe Technology stands atop freshly melted ice—behind it, a long winter; ahead, an unnamed warm current.