Recently, Beijing ZhiPu HuaZhang Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "ZhiPu AI") submitted an application for initial public offering (IPO) guidance registration to the Beijing Securities Regulatory Commission. As one of the "six little tigers" in the large model field, it is the first to embark on the IPO process. If all goes smoothly, ZhiPu AI is expected to become the first "large model" company listed on the Chinese A-share market.
Founded in 2019, ZhiPu AI originated from the technological achievements of Tsinghua University's Computer Science Department. Since its establishment, the company has attracted significant investor attention and become an industry leader, thanks to its strong technological capabilities and team. Tang Jie, the de facto controller of ZhiPu, and Liu Debing, both possess strong academic backgrounds. Tang Jie is a long-term professor at Tsinghua University, while Liu Debing serves as the company's chairman, focusing on corporate strategy and capital operation.
ZhiPu AI's technological foundation includes various AI models, such as the GLM series, the ChatGLM conversational model, the CodeGeeX code model, and the CogVLM multimodal model. Recently, ZhiPu's publicly released open-source model, GLM-4-32B-0414, has garnered significant attention due to its inference speed of 200 tokens per second and a cost that is 1/30th that of similar products. In terms of business, ZhiPu AI not only provides the "ZhiPu QingYan" chatbot app for individual users, generating over 10 million yuan in annual revenue, but also covers multiple industries in the B2B market, including smart cars, finance, and healthcare, demonstrating strong market potential.
ZhiPu AI's core strategy centers on the AI agent field. The company has released related products such as AutoGLM and AutoGLM Shensi, and is collaborating with Samsung on the development of smart apps for the Galaxy S25 series. CEO Zhang Peng stated that 2025 will be the first year of AI agent applications, and believes ZhiPu AI will play a significant role in this wave.
In terms of financing, ZhiPu AI has completed over 10 rounds of financing, with a total amount exceeding 10 billion yuan. Investors include well-known institutions such as GaoLing Capital and Qiming Venture Partners. Recently, it has also secured strategic investments from several local state-owned enterprises, reflecting high market expectations for its future prospects. According to the latest valuation, ZhiPu AI's market capitalization reached $4.615 billion (approximately 30 billion yuan) in February 2025.
The upcoming IPO guidance process will be divided into three stages: fact-finding, concentrated rectification, and application preparation, expected to take about six months. If successful, ZhiPu AI will officially begin its journey towards listing, becoming the anticipated pioneer of "large model" companies in the market.
