Lost 3.1 billion yuan in three years, with a debt ratio of 165%, Tsinghua professor's solid-state battery "unicorn" company rushes for IPO

Ask AI · What debt crises might QingTao Energy face if its IPO fails?

Hitting the popular concept of solid-state batteries, QingTao Energy has too many “glowing halos” above its head.

It is the “top leader in solid-state batteries,” founded by the team led by Nan Cewen, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Tsinghua University; it is a company that automakers such as SAIC, BAIC, and GAC have invested heavily in. SAIC provided it with more than 2.9 billion yuan in cash; it has been established for 10 years, and its valuation has increased by 158 times.

But QingTao Energy has also gone through more than four years of STAR Market guidance, yet it still has not managed to file for an IPO. Over the past three years, it has racked up cumulative losses of more than 3 billion yuan, and its asset-liability ratio is as high as 165%. With capacity utilization at only 53%, it still plans to significantly expand capacity; over the next 5 years, it will expand capacity by 14 times.

This star battery company, from the day it was born, has seen honors and crises run in parallel. Now, it is walking at the “crossroads” of its fate. Huaxia Energy Network noted that on April 8, QingTao Energy officially submitted its IPO application, planning to list on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Aiming at an IPO on the HKEX is both a helpless move and a necessary “last stand” for QingTao Energy. Whether it succeeds or fails—this is the decisive moment.

Business highlights of QingTao Energy

Tsinghua professor creates a myth—valuation soars 158 times in 10 years

In 2016, Feng Yuchuan, Li Zheng, Nan Cewen, and Yang Fan (Feng Yuchuan’s spouse) founded QingTao Energy. Among the founding team, the first three all graduated from Tsinghua University. The two characters “QingTao” are an abbreviation for the “National Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processes at Tsinghua University.”

Among them, Nan Cewen is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Tsinghua University. In 2002, he served as the chief scientist for the national “973” Program’s functional ceramics project. Feng Yuchuan, Li Zheng, and the current Vice General Manager of QingTao Energy, He Hongcai, all are PhD holders from Tsinghua University, having studied under Nan Cewen.

At the beginning of its founding, QingTao Energy fully devoted itself to solid-state battery research. Feng Yuchuan served as chairman, Li Zheng as general manager, and Nan Cewen as chief scientist.

QingTao Energy chairman Feng Yuchuan

In electrolyte research for solid-state batteries, the industry generally has three main routes: polymer, sulfides, and oxides. At the time, the industry broadly favored the sulfide route pursued by companies in Japan and South Korea, believing that oxide routes have poor conductivity and would be difficult to break through.

But from the outset, QingTao Energy chose a “less popular” path: for the first-generation solid-state batteries, it selected oxide + polymer; for the second-generation solid-state batteries, it selected oxide + halide + polymer.

Being “less popular” means it is niche—problems appear everywhere, in technology, materials, industry, and the market.

Therefore, when QingTao Energy was first established, it was extremely difficult. Li Zheng was responsible for the R&D team, tackling technical issues and breaking through the technical hurdles of scaling up solid electrolytes into lithium batteries for mass application; Feng Yuchuan was responsible for opening up the market, charging on the front line—watching production and pulling business. Members of the founding team often held multiple roles at once, doing R&D, doing production, and doing sales.

“When production tasks were heavy, everyone worked together on the front line. And when it came to finding sales channels, you also had to personally go to different places across the country to communicate and negotiate with customers,” Li Zheng recalled in an interview.

Although starting out was hard, supported by a strong academic background and leading research capability, QingTao Energy’s financing went very smoothly.

From September 2016 to 2022, QingTao Energy completed financing rounds from A through G. The investors were very “luxurious”: there were local state-owned capital platforms such as the Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Fund, Kunshan Guokechuang, and Chengdu Chuantou; there was also industrial capital such as SAIC Group, BAIC Chuangtou, and GAC Capital; and there were well-known investment institutions such as Peak-Rui Capital, Tsinghua Holdings Yannan Ginkgo, and Bank of China Investment.

Especially worth mentioning is that in 2023, an investment institution under SAIC Group injected 2.7 billion yuan, setting the domestic record for the highest single-round financing in solid-state batteries. SAIC also became one of QingTao Energy’s most important strategic shareholders.

In 2021, QingTao Energy signed a STAR Market listing guidance agreement with China Merchants Securities, beginning preparations for a STAR Market listing.

However, the originally planned 6-month guidance period kept getting delayed. By January 2026, QingTao Energy’s 17th round of guidance work was still ongoing. After more than four years of guidance yielded no results, QingTao Energy had no choice but to shift its focus to the HKEX.

In the days just before submitting its Hong Kong IPO application, in January–February 2026, QingTao Energy also completed an H-round financing, with a post-investment valuation of about 28 billion yuan. By this point, since its founding, QingTao Energy had cumulatively raised as much as 6.946 billion yuan; the per-share cost surged from 0.3 yuan in 2016 to 47.5 yuan in 2026. Over 10 years, its valuation increased by nearly 158 times.

“Solid-state leader” is well known, but the story being told is a bit too big

Frost & Sullivan data shows that in 2025, global shipments of hybrid liquid-solid and all-solid-state batteries are about 6 GWh. Based on shipment volumes, QingTao Energy ranks first globally with a market share of about 33.6%, and in China its market share is about 44.8%.

Judging from this set of data, QingTao Energy truly deserves the title of “global leader in solid-state batteries.” However, the data’s measurement standard combines hybrid liquid-solid batteries and all-solid-state batteries into one category, greatly blurring the gap between the two in terms of technological maturity and commercialization, and also casting doubt on QingTao Energy’s “solid-state battery leader” claim.

In addition, if calculated based on Sullivan’s data, QingTao Energy’s 2025 shipment volume is about 2 GWh. But the prospectus shows that from 2023 to 2025, QingTao Energy’s production was 0.24 GWh, 0.15 GWh, and 1.33 GWh. In total over three years, production adds up to only 1.72 GWh—there is an obvious gap between the officially disclosed production and the shipment data provided by Sullivan.

So, how strong is this “solid-state battery leader” actually in the all-solid-state battery field?

In terms of technology route, QingTao Energy follows the “organic-inorganic composite solid electrolyte” route. QingTao Energy believes this is a fast and commercially feasible technology route that can achieve the development and commercialization of both hybrid liquid-solid batteries and all-solid-state batteries.

In terms of products, QingTao Energy has already produced 15Ah all-solid-state batteries, with an energy density of 401.5 Wh/kg, and even after 1,000 cycles it can still maintain 84% capacity.

In terms of capacity, the Kunshan 0.1GWh all-solid-state battery pilot line built in 2018 has already entered operation, and batch production of cells with capacity exceeding 60Ah has been completed.

In terms of deployed applications, QingTao Energy has delivered more than 16,800 sets of hybrid liquid-solid batteries and all-solid-state batteries, which are installed on 32 vehicle models. However, on average, each vehicle model only has 525 sets installed, meaning it is still a very limited scope of application.

In addition, Huaxia Energy Network noted that in QingTao Energy’s IPO prospectus, the standalone section on all-solid-state batteries contains no more than 10 paragraphs; the rest appear together with hybrid liquid-solid batteries. The faster-to-commercialize hybrid liquid-solid batteries will be installed in the mass-produced SAIC MG4 Urban model, which is expected to be listed only in the second half of 2026.

From the information above, it can be seen that whether for hybrid liquid-solid batteries or all-solid-state batteries, QingTao Energy has not truly entered the stage of mass production and vehicle installation. The so-called commercialization deployment is still at the storytelling stage.

Although commercialization has not been fully rolled out, QingTao Energy’s capacity expansion is especially aggressive.

At present, QingTao Energy has five production bases for hybrid liquid-solid and all-solid-state batteries, with annual capacity of 6.8 GWh. But in 2025, its effective capacity was only 2.5 GWh, and production was only 1.33 GWh—capacity utilization was just 53%.

With nearly half of its capacity idle, QingTao Energy still chooses to “run forward with eyes closed.” The capacity currently under construction is as high as 18.5 GWh, and it plans to expand overall capacity to 98.2 GWh by 2030. This figure is about 14.4 times the current capacity and nearly 40 times the effective capacity.

Also, the prospectus mentions that it is expected that from 2026 to 2028, SAIC will place orders with QingTao Energy of 60,000 sets, 500,000 sets, and 780,000 sets respectively. The annual upper limits under the sales framework agreement between QingTao Energy and SAIC are 1 billion, 50 billion, and 95 billion yuan. QingTao Energy will reserve about 50% of its capacity over the next three years for SAIC.

However, from 2023 to 2025, the transaction amounts between QingTao Energy and SAIC Group for power battery cells and small battery systems were zero, zero, and 54.3 million yuan, respectively.

This means that the delivery order volume for QingTao’s sales to SAIC over the next three years must grow from 54.3 million yuan to 165 billion yuan—about 304 times. Is this a market forecast with scientific basis, or is it just a super-sized “pie” drawn for the listing? The truth will soon be clear.

Three years of losses totaling 3.1 billion—carrying a 7.7 billion “bomb” of redeemable debt

Along with the large-scale capacity expansion, QingTao Energy’s profitability is deteriorating faster.

QingTao Energy has four business segments: power batteries, energy storage batteries, automation equipment, and others (mainly waste recovery). In 2025, the first three segments accounted for 62.8%, 25.1%, and 8.2% of revenue respectively.

Among them, the energy storage battery business is highly dependent on a single energy storage project for demand. From 2023 to 2025, energy storage battery revenue increased from 92.31 million yuan to 5.92 billion yuan, and shipment volume increased from 0.13 GWh to 1.17 GWh. The main reason is that in 2025, the 800MWh Ulanqab global largest hybrid liquid-solid battery energy storage station in Inner Mongolia was under construction. QingTao Energy is the only battery supplier for this project, which led to a sharp rise in energy storage shipments.

2023–2025 QingTao Energy’s revenue by its four business segments

Compared with the surge in the energy storage business, the power battery business—considered the core “fundamental base”—fell into a quagmire of “the more it sells, the worse it loses.”

In 2025, QingTao Energy’s power battery business shipment volume was 0.78 GWh, but its gross loss margin was as high as -111.6%. This means that for every 100 yuan of power batteries sold, QingTao Energy additionally loses 111.6 yuan.

The causes include: first, high raw material prices. QingTao Energy states that key raw materials did not receive pricing discounts through large-volume procurement, while it also maintained a certain amount of inventory for preparation. Among these materials, several are still in the early stage of commercialization, and scale effects and cost efficiency have not yet been fully reflected.

Second, battery selling prices are low. From 2023 to 2025, QingTao Energy’s average selling prices for power battery products were 0.56 yuan/Wh, 0.6 yuan/Wh, and 0.31 yuan/Wh; for energy storage battery products they were 0.7 yuan/Wh, 0.54 yuan/Wh, and 0.51 yuan/Wh.

These price levels are not far from current liquid lithium iron phosphate and ternary batteries. Taking power batteries as an example, a BloombergNEF report shows that in 2025, the average price in China’s market was about 0.588 yuan/Wh.

It’s like selling ginseng at radish prices—QingTao Energy’s solid-state batteries have no product premium, and manufacturing costs remain high. Under this double squeeze, QingTao Energy’s power battery business is in an unhealthy state of “bleeding to gain market share.”

Under loss-making operations in the core battery business, QingTao Energy’s automation equipment and waste recovery business instead became the only bright spot on the statements. In 2025, the gross margin rates for these two businesses reached 26.8% and 77%, respectively—making them the closest segments to “business maturity.”

However, because these businesses account for too small a proportion, they fundamentally cannot make up for the company’s huge R&D and operating consumption.

As a technology-driven company, QingTao Energy’s investment in R&D can be described as going all out. From 2023 to 2025, R&D expenses were 142 million yuan, 296 million yuan, and 377 million yuan, accounting for 57.2%, 72.9%, and 40% of total revenue for the period respectively. The company has also clearly stated that future R&D expenses will be maintained at a high level.

High R&D spending, large-scale capacity construction expenditures, and core business loss-making operations have led to severe losses for QingTao Energy. In 2023, 2024, and 2025, the company’s revenue was 248 million yuan, 405 million yuan, and 943 million yuan respectively. In the same period, losses were 853 million yuan, 9.99 billion yuan, and 1.302 billion yuan respectively. Cumulative losses over three years reached 31.54 billion yuan.

Even more seriously, QingTao Energy is already severely insolvent.

As of the end of 2025, QingTao Energy had total assets of 6.632 billion yuan, total liabilities of 10.971 billion yuan, a net deficit of 4.339 billion yuan, and an asset-liability ratio as high as 165.4%.

Among them, current assets were 3.331 billion yuan, current liabilities were 9.75 billion yuan, and the net amount of current liabilities was 6.418 billion yuan, but cash and cash equivalents were only 1.238 billion yuan.

From 2023 to 2025, QingTao Energy’s cash flow from operating activities was negative for three consecutive years, with total net cash outflow of more than 1.5 billion yuan. Over two years, cash reserves shrank by more than 1.9 billion yuan.

More worth worrying about is the “redeemable debt” line item. This part consists of redeemable preferred shares held by investors, equivalent to a listed “betting agreement” for the listing. By the end of 2025, the scale of QingTao Energy’s redeemable debt reached 7.713 billion yuan.

According to the agreement, from the date of the first submission of the listing application to the HKEX, the redemption right will expire. But if the IPO application is withdrawn, invalidated, rejected, or not completed by June 30, 2028, the redemption right will automatically be restored. Only once the IPO is completed will the redemption right be terminated. This is like carrying a “bomb” whose fuse could be lit at any moment—if the listing fails and results in forced redemption, QingTao Energy will be in a very passive position.

Under heavy pressure, this IPO for QingTao Energy is a life-and-death “last stand,” and also a “debt settlement path” that it has no choice but to take. If it succeeds, it escapes death’s door; if it fails, it will likely ignite a chain reaction of risks. Life and death are just one line apart, and there is not much time left for QingTao Energy.

Author statement: personal opinions, for reference only