Yunqi Capital Portfolio Company Zhaogang Group Successfully Lists on Hong Kong Stock Exchange | Yunqi Capital

On March 10, Zhaogang Group, a Yunqi Capital portfolio company and operator of China's largest steel e-commerce platform, officially began trading on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under ticker 06676, marking Hong Kong's second-ever De-SPAC transaction.

Yunqi Capital founding partner Chengyu Mao (then an investor at IDG Capital) first connected with Dong Wang's founding team at Zhaogang's earliest stages and tracked their progress ever since. After establishing Yunqi Capital, the firm participated in Zhaogang Group's Series E round in 2016.

Founded in 2012, Zhaogang Group started with steel as its entry point and built out a technology service ecosystem around industrial and construction sector customers. Its founders were among China's first generation of professional steel industry managers. Addressing pain points in steel trading, Zhaogang Group pioneered full-chain, one-stop B2B services for steel transactions in China, encompassing online steel trading, logistics, warehousing and processing, SaaS products, and big data analytics — enabling customers to achieve significant efficiency gains in steel transactions.

Zhaogang Group currently operates the world's largest third-party steel trading platform. According to its prospectus, the company's digital platform features over 623,000 SKUs available for sale, connecting approximately 15,000 registered sellers and more than 180,000 registered buyers, with high repurchase rates. As of September 30, 2024, platform transaction volume exceeded 41.3 million tons, up 21.1% year-over-year; GMV reached 152.9 billion yuan in the same period, up 11.61% year-over-year.

Non-steel operations and international expansion have also achieved notable breakthroughs. In the first three quarters of 2024, gross profit from Zhaogang's non-steel product transactions surged 333% year-over-year (expanding into electronic components, electrical equipment, and hardware through its Tengcaitong SaaS tool). On the international front, the company has exported its mature domestic steel industry internet expertise overseas, particularly to the Middle East market, where since 2023 it has provided supply chain services worth approximately $10 million for various large-scale projects. In the first three quarters of 2024, international business gross profit grew 200%, demonstrating potential for cross-industry and global expansion.

Furthermore, Zhaogang Group has actively embraced technological shifts, achieving AI-powered full-process enablement: it developed China's first B2B transaction-oriented SaaS tool, with its AI Agent achieving over 95% accuracy in task execution and boosting industrial chain efficiency by more than 10x. Its Pangmao Cloud and Tengcaitong SaaS products have surpassed 2,000+ users, processing over 10 million conversational data entries daily.

Through precise identification of industry pain points, coupled with corresponding digital innovation and intelligent supply chain management, Zhaogang Group has helped dramatically reduce costs and improve efficiency in steel industry transactions, demonstrating the viability of deep coupling between technology enablement and industrial application. We look forward to further innovation.

Using technological innovation to enable industries is a core investment philosophy at Yunqi Capital. Following this principle, we have systematically deployed capital in AI, industrial digitization, global expansion, and other directions over the years. Beyond Zhaogang Group, our early-stage investments include MiniMax, Manycore Tech (Kujiale), Zhijing Technology (Baibu), XTransfer, WorldEx, IceKredit, and JD.com — all outstanding companies.

Yunqi Capital looks forward to advancing together with Zhaogang Group, opening up promising futures across supply chain upgrades, intelligent global expansion, and AI-enabled industries.