Embodied intelligence investors collectively lose money: 13 robotics companies listed in Hong Kong, 8 broke issue price

Embodied intelligence may be the most investor-obsessed track this year.

According to IT Juzi data, in the first half of 2026 there were 312 financing deals in domestic embodied intelligence, more than the 227 for large models, ranking first among all AI sub-tracks.

While primary-market investors are still scrambling for deals, the institutions that entered early have already started losing money in the Hong Kong stock market.

This year 13 robotics companies listed in Hong Kong, of which 8 broke their issue price. Cornerstone investors in 10 companies invested a combined HK$4.861 billion, and now show a theoretical net unrealized loss of HK$855 million.

What is more frustrating is that they are also locked up for six months, unable to exit even if they want to.

The VCs that entered even earlier are not much better off. The median per-share book return of the final financing round across 12 companies is only 70.4%. Given current market conditions, losing money is highly likely.

Worse still, even after the lock-up expires, these investors may not be able to sell. The institutional holdings of the 13 companies are conservatively estimated at over HK$20.9 billion, and 8 of them have average daily turnover of less than HK$20 million.

Assuming institutions sell an amount each day equal to 20% of market turnover, a static calculation based on current volume puts the median time needed for these institutions to fully exit at as long as two years!

So embodied intelligence presents an ironic scene: primary-market investors are still competing to put money in, while those who invested a step earlier via listings are now worrying about how to get their money out.

What are cornerstones supposed to do? Back the offering, stabilize the market, and in theory be the earliest to get allocations and the safest tier. But in this batch of robotics stocks, cornerstones became the last to take the baton.

This year 13 robotics companies listed in Hong Kong, 8 broke their issue price. Of these, 10 brought in cornerstone investors, who invested a combined HK$4.861 billion; based on the latest share prices, the theoretical net unrealized loss is HK$855 million — a fifth of principal gone.

The most typical case is Laifu Harmonic. It listed on June 30 this year at an issue price of HK$85.50, with 10 cornerstones including Oaktree Capital, Alphahill Capital and Harvest Global subscribing a combined HK$431 million.

In less than four months the share price fell to HK$30.72, a drop of 64.1%. At that price, the 10 cornerstone investors show a combined unrealized loss of about HK$276 million. For every HK$100 invested, only HK$36 remains.

Six months ago they were invited to lend support; six months later they find themselves at the summit.

Worst of all, most cornerstone investors do not even get a chance to cut losses. Under the subscription agreements, cornerstone investors in Hong Kong IPOs typically must accept a six-month lock-up, and for UDI Robot it is as long as nine months.

As of October 20, among the 10 companies with cornerstones, only Edge Medical and Huayan Robotics have seen their lock-ups expire.

And expiry is not necessarily relief. The two companies whose lock-ups have expired give a rather painful answer.

Edge Medical makes a domestic version of the da Vinci surgical robot. It listed on January 8 this year at an issue price of HK$43.24, with 14 cornerstone subscriptions totaling HK$584 million, including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and OrbiMed.

By the July 9 lock-up expiry, the share price was only HK$39.92, an unrealized loss of HK$44.8 million. More than three months later, on October 20, the share price fell to HK$31.98, and the unrealized loss widened to HK$152 million.

Huayan Robotics is even harsher.

On March 30 this year the company listed at HK$17, with 9 cornerstone subscriptions totaling HK$770 million; Hillhouse-related entity HHLRA and GF Fund each put in HK$235 million.

On September 30, the day the lock-up expired, the share price was HK$8.25, down 51.5% from the issue price, an unrealized loss of HK$396 million. By October 20 the share price was HK$6.90, and the entire cornerstone group showed an unrealized loss of HK$457 million.

Together the two lost HK$609 million.

Of course, what may be even more painful are the institutions still temporarily making money.

Among the remaining 8 companies whose lock-ups have not yet expired, 4 cornerstones are already underwater, while the other 4 — Luoshi, UDI, Benmo and Huanchuang — still show book profits but may not laugh last.

The most typical of the remaining 4 is Huanchuang Technology. It listed on September 30 at an issue price of HK$58.85, and on the first day intraday it peaked at HK$215.20, up 266%. Twenty days later the share price was HK$85.15, a 60.4% retreat from the high, giving back 83% of the peak book gain. Most awkwardly, Huanchuang Technology's cornerstone investors still have five months until lock-up expiry.

Those who can sell have already lost money; those who cannot sell can only watch their accounts shrink — that is the current situation of cornerstones.

VC returns are thin as paper, IPO-round book return only 70.4%

Slightly better off than cornerstones are the VCs that entered before the IPO; they still have book profits.

Excluding Edge Medical, whose cost is hard to calculate, the median per-share book return of the final financing round across the other 12 companies is 70.4%.

Sounds okay. But this arithmetic does not hold up: at that return rate, another 41% drop in the share price wipes out all the profit.

And in today's robotics sector, a 40% drop is not even an extreme move. Yifei Technology fell 62.3% just 43 days after listing; Kailesi Technology was even more extreme, dropping 50.1% in a mere 19 days.

In other words, in the current market, a robotics company needs only one or two months to wipe out all the book gains VCs accumulated over the past few years.

What is more, these institutions still have to stay locked up.

Compared with the usual six-month lock-up for cornerstone investors, shares held by pre-IPO institutional shareholders are generally locked up for one year, and after some shares are unlocked there are also procedures such as H-share conversion.

Even for Edge Medical, the earliest of these companies to list, the relevant institutional shares cannot have their general lock-up restrictions lifted until January 9, 2027 at the earliest, nearly three months from October 20.

This means that by the time they can actually sell, it is highly likely that these VCs who participated in the IPO-round financing will lose money.

This is not even the most troublesome problem. Compared with the stock price decline, there is an even thornier issue: even if they hold out until the lock-up expires, the market may not have enough money to take over the shares.

According to institutional holdings data, among the 13 robotics companies, the lower-bound market value of shares held by investment institutions has already reached HK$20.955 billion.

What does that mean? It is equivalent to 4.3 times the principal subscribed by cornerstone investors in the previous 10 companies. If these institutions collectively seek to exit in the future, it means potential sell orders of more than HK$20 billion that will need to be gradually absorbed by the secondary market.

But the liquidity of the Hong Kong stock market's robotics sector simply cannot absorb these potential sell orders.

Among the 13, 8 had an average daily turnover of less than HK$20 million over the past 20 trading days.

Assuming institutions sell an amount each day equal to 20% of market turnover, based on current stock prices and turnover in a static calculation, the median time needed to sell out all these institutional holdings actually reaches 473 trading days.

A full two years!

Note that this is still only an idealized calculation: assuming the stock price is unchanged, turnover is unchanged, and institutions can steadily sell shares equivalent to 20% of market turnover every day.

In reality, large-scale sustained reductions are very likely to push the stock price down further.

Mech-Mind is a fairly representative example. At present, the verified market value of institutional holdings in Mech-Mind is about HK$5.621 billion.

But the average daily turnover over the past 20 trading days was only HK$9.39 million.

In other words, a company's institutional shareholders hold shares worth HK$5.6 billion, while the entire market trades less than HK$10 million a day.

If calculated based on a 20% share of turnover, these institutions can sell only about HK$1.88 million in total per day. At this rate, how long would it take to sell out the HK$5.621 billion in holdings? 2,994 trading days.

At 250 trading days per year, that is close to a full 12 years.

What does 12 years mean? The term of a domestic RMB fund is usually "7+2," at most around ten years or so. That is to say, by the time these shares are sold out, the fund may already have been liquidated.

What is crueler is that before the old exit pressure has been absorbed, new share supply is constantly pouring in.

At present, 16 robotics-concept companies have publicly filed with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, of which 9 involve robot bodies or mobile robots.

Star companies such as AgiBot, Galaxy General, and LimX Dynamics have also successively been reported to be going public.

This means that the Hong Kong stock market's robotics sector in the future is very likely to see an even denser IPO wave.

On one side are already-listed robotics companies, with tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars in institutional holdings waiting to exit; on the other side are more high-valuation robotics companies rushing to list and continuing to raise funds from the secondary market.

What everyone is fighting for, in the end, is the money in the same market.

When the primary market pushes the valuation of robotics companies to a height the secondary market can hardly sustain, someone ultimately has to bear the price gap in between. Now it seems that cornerstone investors have already paid the price first, and those VCs still holding large paper profits are also beginning to face the same test.

How much real money can ultimately be left from this robotics capital feast may only be calculable when everyone has truly exited.

This article comes from the WeChat public account "Silicon-Based Observation Pro", author: Yuanyuan, published by 36Kr with authorization.