Robotics Startup Shenpu Bets 810 Million Yuan on ST Shell

A robotics startup under two years old will spend approximately 810 million yuan to become the controlling shareholder of *ST Meizhi, a 42-year-old home renovation company trading under a delisting risk warning on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

On the evening of September 22, *ST Meizhi announced that a consortium of 15 investors led by Beijing Shenpu Intelligence won the bid to serve as investor for the company's out-of-court restructuring and subsequent judicial reorganization. Shenpu Intelligence plans to invest roughly RMB 810 million to subscribe for about 92.86 million shares. The full consortium, led by Shenpu, plans to invest approximately RMB 1.8 billion and is expected to hold about 54.9% of Meizhi's shares after the restructuring.

The pairing looks mismatched on almost every dimension. Meizhi was founded in 1984 and has ridden decades of cycles in real estate, infrastructure and construction decoration. It listed in Shenzhen in 2017. Its consolidated parent company net asset value stood at -RMB 52.4662 million at the end of 2025, and its net profit — whichever is lower before or after excluding non-recurring items — was negative in each of the last three fiscal years. If Meizhi again triggers delisting conditions in the 2026 fiscal year, its stock faces termination of listing.

Shenpu Intelligence, by contrast, is a general-purpose embodied intelligence robotics company targeting family-like scenarios first: hotels, healthcare and wellness, retail, and domestic services. Its stated ultimate goal is bringing robots into homes. Public products include the service robot Xiao Pu, the HiFi UMI data production system, and an embodied intelligence model.

The founder, Li Xiaofei, holds bachelor's and doctoral degrees from Tsinghua University's Department of Automotive Engineering, where his research covered intelligent vehicle environmental perception and AI algorithms. He spent years founding and building autonomous driving startups before moving into embodied intelligence. He directly holds 21.25% of the company's equity and, through three partnership entities under his control, an additional 25.49% — roughly 46.74% of voting rights in total.

Shenpu's robots have begun real-world testing. At the Beijing Lido Jingying Hotel, they perform item placement, laundry delivery and clothes folding. Shenpu has also signed a strategic cooperation framework with China Travel Hotel proposing deployment across more than 400 of its hotels, though publicly available updates show the Beijing proof of concept remains the primary implementation.

The capital record is fast but the balance sheet is thin. In less than two years, Shenpu has completed five funding rounds, with Shunwei Capital, Baidu Ventures and Didi among its shareholders. In June, Didi led a Pre-A round of hundreds of millions of yuan; in early September, roughly three months later, Shenpu closed another Pre-A+ round of similar scale.

According to the announcement, Shenpu recorded revenue of RMB 10.98 million and a net loss of RMB 10.0957 million in 2025. As of September 14, 2026, revenue amounted to RMB 7 million against a net loss of RMB 35.25 million. The company's unrestricted cash on hand stood at RMB 512 million — approximately RMB 300 million short of the required RMB 810 million. The agreement permits own or self-raised funding, but own funds must account for at least 50%.

That a cash-burning, pre-commercial robotics firm would buy a near-delisted renovator raises the obvious question: is it rescuing Meizhi, or using a distressed listing as a faster route to capitalize its robotics business?

The timing points to the second reading. On August 19, Unitree Robotics went public, with its stock surging to 1,100 yuan per share and its market capitalization reaching 444.9 billion yuan on day one. The enthusiasm proved short-lived. Unitree's share price and market value have since declined by more than 55%; as of the close on September 24, the stock traded at RMB 488 and the market capitalization had dropped below RMB 200 billion.

The reversal has forced a rethink of whether robotics is a proven business model or a super-industry story still awaiting validation. Around the same time, reports emerged of tightening IPO reviews in the humanoid robotics sector. On September 21, Caixin reported that some investment bankers had received internal alerts from their firms warning that hard-tech IPOs, including robotics, could be delayed if the issuers lack prominent industry standing. A senior figure at a leading securities firm said the move primarily reinforces front-line due diligence responsibilities of sponsor institutions rather than imposing a simple suspension.

The robot IPO has not been officially shut down, but the rules of the game are changing. Shenpu's move suggests one answer for companies already at the doorstep of capitalization: instead of waiting in line for an IPO, buy the listing — a structure similar to a reverse takeover.

Shenpu is not the first. UBTECH and Qiteng Robotics have also successively gained control of listed companies. Although both once denied plans for a backdoor listing, the market now automatically interprets "robotics company plus control of a listed company" as a new capitalization path, and some media have described the phenomenon as "hoarding shells." Qiteng, notably, has begun converting the listed company it controls into a robotics-focused business.

The pattern points to a common trend. As IPO reviews increasingly value what a robotics company has already accomplished, growing firms may start asking whether they can acquire a publicly traded company first — and wait for their own industry to mature afterward.