Filing for listing in Hong Kong three times in quick succession, why is Standard Robots so eager?

Lead: Trapped in payment cycles, Standee knocks on the door of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for the third time due to a lack of funds.

Another robotics company has knocked on the door of the Hong Kong stock market.

Recently, Standee Robotics $斯坦德机器人(无锡)股份有限公司(25141.HK) submitted its prospectus to the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. If it successfully lists, Standee is expected to become the "first share of industrial embodied intelligence" on the Hong Kong stock market.

From an industry data perspective, this company is quite capable. According to Frost & Sullivan, based on sales volume in 2025, Standee is the fourth-largest provider of industrial intelligent mobile robot solutions in China.

The company's revenue has also been steadily increasing, nearly doubling over the past three years.

However, this is the third time Standee has submitted its application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with only 23 days having passed since the previous prospectus expired.

What is the reason that makes this company so eager?

01 Three submissions, with intervals getting shorter and shorter

Standee's first submission to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange was on June 23, 2025.

At that time, the capital market still had considerable enthusiasm for tracks such as humanoid robots and industrial AMRs, and Standee's technical story was compelling enough. But six months later, this prospectus became invalid due to the expiration of its validity period, and Standee failed to complete the listing during this period.

On January 4 this year, the company updated its prospectus and submitted it for the second time, but the result was the same as last time.

Just 23 days after the second expiration of the prospectus, Standee submitted it for the third time. From the prospectus, it can be seen that the company's fundamentals are getting better and better.

According to the prospectus, from 2023 to 2025, the company's revenue grew from 162 million yuan to 300 million yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of about 36%.

Losses are also narrowing continuously.

In 2023, the company's adjusted net loss was 95 million yuan, which dropped to 35,000 yuan by 2025.

The company's profitability is also climbing continuously.

From 2023 to 2025, the company's gross profit margins were 31.6%, 38.8%, and 40.5%, respectively.

However, two pieces of data look particularly glaring.

In the first four months of this year, the company's adjusted net loss was 24 million yuan; as of April 30, 2026, the company's cash and cash equivalents remained at only 50 million yuan.

In other words, the money lost in four months is already close to half of the cash on hand.

Three submissions, two expirations, with intervals getting shorter and shorter.

The signal revealed by this rhythm is clear: the company's thirst for funds is becoming increasingly urgent, and the time window is getting narrower and narrower.

02 Why does a smart company run out of money?

Judging from Standee's development history, the company really doesn't look like it would run out of money.

This company was founded in 2016 and has strong foresight in strategic layout. In 2018, the company entered the 5G supply chain; in 2021, the company caught up with the boom in new energy vehicles. Riding this east wind, Standee became a well-known company in the automotive industry.

So, why does the company run out of money?

At first glance, high expenditures are an important cause of the company's lack of funds.

According to the prospectus, from 2023 to 2025, the company's R&D expenses rose from 56 million yuan to 77 million yuan; during the same period, the company's sales and marketing expenses rose from 57 million yuan to 114 million yuan.

However, as a technology company, tilting funds towards R&D is understandable; building sales channels is also a necessary expenditure in the process of commercialization.

Against this background, the main reason Standee runs out of money is largely due to the excessively long payment cycles downstream.

From 2023 to 2025, the company's accounts receivable and notes turnover days continued to rise, reaching 144.2 days, 163.2 days, and 229.1 days, respectively. In the first four months of this year, it reached 272.5 days.

This money is indeed a "large sum" for Standee. In the first four months of this year, the amount of the company's accounts receivable and notes reached 172 million yuan, an amount sufficient to cover losses.

At the same time, the excessively long payment cycle has also increased the pressure on Standee's cash conversion.

In the first four months of this year, this cycle reached 290.4 days. Standee frankly stated in the prospectus that if the cash conversion cycle is too long, it may exacerbate the company's dependence on operating funds or external financing.

03 The path to profitability is full of challenges

If Standee successfully lists on the Hong Kong stock market, it will undoubtedly alleviate the company's financial pressure, but this is far from the end.

Currently, the market's scrutiny of robotics companies is becoming increasingly strict. If the business model itself cannot self-sustain and achieve profitability, more financing will only delay the crisis.

It is worth mentioning that after the Pre-C round of financing, Standee's post-investment valuation once reached 2.1 billion yuan, but before the subsequent C round of financing, the valuation once dropped back to 1.35 billion yuan, returning to 2.1 billion yuan only after experiencing the C and D rounds. This fluctuation in valuation largely reflects investors' attitudes toward its profitability prospects.

For Standee, there are many challenges on the path to profitability.

Currently, the domestic industrial mobile robot track has triggered fierce price wars due to the influx of many players. According to media reports, the price of some standardized handling robots has dropped from hundreds of thousands of yuan in the early days to 80,000 to 100,000 yuan, and even to 50,000 to 60,000 yuan in certain scenarios.

The intensity of competition in the mainland market is evident from the revenue trends. In the first four months of this year, the company's revenue in the mainland was 34 million yuan, down from 37 million yuan in the same period last year.

At the same time, the embodied robot business laid out by the company cannot currently shoulder the burden of performance.

The embodied robots under Standee are the company's highest-priced products, with a unit price range of 450,000 to 1.111 million yuan.

However, in the first four months of this year, the revenue generated by this business accounted for only 2.4% of the company's total revenue. The backbone of the company's revenue remains functional robots and functional robot solutions, totaling 82.1%.

Under these circumstances, the overseas market may be the greatest hope for the company to achieve performance growth in the medium and short term.

In the prospectus, Standee clearly stated that the competitive environment overseas

is "relatively unsaturated," and customers are willing to pay a higher premium for robot solutions, so the company's product pricing overseas is generally higher, and gross margins continue to outperform the mainland market.

Currently, Standee's expansion overseas has made significant progress.

From 2023 to 2025, the company's overseas market sales increased from 12.5% to 25.3%. In the first four months of this year, this proportion grew to 67.9%.

Can this help Standee achieve profitability and "justify" its valuation? At the same time, can the future embodied intelligence business open up the company's growth ceiling?

Behind the obsession with three submissions is Standee's urgent pursuit of answers to these questions.