Tuslianco has submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with Citic Securities and Haitong International as joint sponsors. Founded 9 years ago, Tuslianco has completed a total of 9 rounds of financing, with the D round of financing reaching as high as 2 billion RMB.
Chongqing Tuslianco Smart Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tuslianco") submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 26, according to "Star Market Daily" (Special Reporter Chen Junqing reporter Huang Xinyi), aiming to become the "first stock of China's public domain AIoT." Citic Securities and Haitong International are the joint sponsors.
According to the prospectus, Tuslianco was established in 2015, focusing on the field of artificial intelligence Internet of Things (AIoT), providing full-stack AIoT products (including software, hardware, and services) to enterprises, public administrators, and other public domain space participants with its AIoT operating system, TacOS. TacOS is one of the earliest public domain AIoT operating systems in Asia that supports full-scene applications in public domain spaces and has become the preferred infrastructure for industrial intelligence digitization.
Holding 2 billion yuan in orders.
In terms of revenue, in 2023, the company's revenue reached 1.006 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.3%. According to the Zhoushi Consultancy report based on the relevant revenue in 2023, Tuslianco is one of China's top five public domain operating system AIoT product providers.
In terms of business segmentation, Tuslianco's business focuses on four main directions: AI industrial digitization, AI urban intelligence, AI smart living, and AI smart energy. Among them, AI industrial digitization and AI urban intelligence are the main sources of revenue, accounting for 62% and 22.3% of revenue, respectively. Both of these businesses have shown good growth rates, achieving year-on-year growth of 32% and 47% in 2023. At the same time, the revenue of the AI smart energy sector saw a significant year-on-year increase of 151%.
As the revenue scale continues to grow, benefiting from the commercial landing of large-scale AI applications, Tuslianco's newly signed orders have been increasing annually. As of June 30, 2024, Tuslianco's order backlog amounts to approximately 2 billion yuan. From 2021 to the end of 2023, the number of new clients signed by Tuslianco increased from 161 to 193.
The prospectus shows that the revenue generated by Tuslianco's top five clients as a percentage of its total revenue for each period during the historical period is on the rise, at 59.4%, 35.2%, 44.2%, and 67.4% respectively. The increasing number of new clients is beneficial for the company's expansion and also helps Tuslianco avoid the risks of over-reliance on a single customer.
About 40% of the R&D expenses.
While the revenue scale continues to expand, Teslink's losses have also been narrowing over the past three years. From 2021 to 2023, Teslink's loss scale narrowed from 2.828 billion yuan to 0.803 billion yuan.
In response, Teslink stated in the prospectus that during the historical period, its net losses were mainly due to the fair value loss of preferred shares, share-based payment expenses, and R&D expenses.
In recent years, Teslink's R&D investment ratio has remained at a relatively high level. R&D expenses for the reporting periods reached 0.287 billion yuan, 0.329 billion yuan, 0.322 billion yuan, and 145 million yuan, accounting for 23.8%, 44.6%, 32.0%, and 40.7% of the respective revenues.
With regard to the R&D team, as of June 30, 2024, Teslink's R&D personnel accounted for 52.2% of the total employees. The R&D team at Teslink is led by three IEEE Fellows - Chief Technology Officer Hua Xiansheng, Chief Scientist Shao Ling, and Chief Scientist Yang Yang, all of whom were ranked among the top 2% of scientists globally by Stanford University.
After 9 rounds of financing, the financing scale has reached 5 billion yuan.
As a unicorn in the public domain AIoT industry, Teslink has been highly favored by top-tier capital. In its 9 years of existence, Teslink has completed 9 rounds of financing, attracting investments from VC/PE, strategic investors or financial investment companies or individuals, as well as artificial intelligence investors, such as GL Capital, IDG, JD Technology, iFlytek Co., Ltd., SenseTime Group, and Yuyao Yangming. The total financing amount exceeds RMB 5 billion.
According to the Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily, in August of this year, Microware Group completed an investment in Teslink, a company in the field of AIoT, with an investment amount of 50 million RMB. This investment represents 0.24% of total shares, estimating Teslink's valuation in this round to be approximately 21 billion yuan.
In addition, on April 9 this year, Teslink announced the completion of a Series D2 financing of 2 billion RMB, which was also the largest Series D financing in the country at that time. Among them, there are as many as 10 state-owned investment platforms, while the other two are from Australian investment institution AL Capital and industry capital Sensetime Technology.
Sources familiar with the matter told reporters that following the largest Series D financing this year, Teslink plans to raise more than 5 billion Hong Kong dollars. According to Wind data, there are a total of 70 new listings on the Hong Kong stock market in 2023, with a total fundraising of 46.752 billion Hong Kong dollars. The IPO fundraising scale is 46.3 billion Hong Kong dollars, a decrease of 55.75% compared to the same period last year.
In the first half of 2024, the total fundraising of 29 main board IPO companies in the first half of the year on the Hong Kong stock market was 11.02 billion Hong Kong dollars, a decrease of about 38.1% compared to 17.8 billion Hong Kong dollars last year. Among them, the largest single fundraising IPO is Chabaida, raising a total of 2.586 billion Hong Kong dollars. Following the largest Series D financing in the country, Teslink, which is speculated to raise over 5 billion Hong Kong dollars, can be seen as a bright spot in the Hong Kong stock market.
According to the prospectus, the funds raised from Teslink's Hong Kong IPO this time will mainly be used to enhance research and development capabilities, particularly investment in TacOS, Green Computing, and large-scale model research and development; to support commercialization and market expansion, including developing new scenario applications and enhancing commercial capabilities, expanding the domestic sales team and increasing market penetration, expanding overseas layout, and strengthening the ecosystem.