Artificial Intelligence Startup CloudWalk Debuts on STAR Market

CloudWalk, an artificial intelligence enterprise, was officially listed on the Shanghai Sci-Tech Innovation Board (STAR Market) on Friday. During its first day of trading, its share price rose 56% to 24 yuan ($3.58) per share before settling at a closing price of 21.4 yuan and a current market value of 15.85 billion yuan.

CloudWalk was born in a laboratory at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Founder Zhou Xi graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In 2011, Zhou returned to China to set up an AI team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and in 2015, he founded CloudWalk.

CloudWalk has obtained 11 rounds of financing since its founding, with backing from Shunwei Capital, Oriza Holdings and Puhua Capital. After completing its round B+ of financing exceeding 1 billion yuan in October 2018, the valuation of CloudWalk at that time was as high as 23 billion yuan.

In recent years, the revenue scale of CloudWalk has gotten brighter. From 2019 to 2021, the company’s operating income was 807 million yuan, 755 million yuan and 1.076 billion yuan respectively. However, the company is still operating at a loss, and has been losing money for the last three years. Data shows that from 2019 to 2021, the net profit of the company was -692 million yuan, -844 million yuan and -664 million yuan respectively. CloudWalk also responded to this in its prospectus, saying that it expects to be profitable by 2025.

According to the prospectus, the main business of CloudWalk can be divided into two categories: man-machine collaborative operating systems and artificial intelligence solutions. The man-machine collaborative operating system is comprised of several segments, including a computing power resource scheduling engine, algorithm warehouse and supporting data platform, in addition to a knowledge center for customers navigating complex decisions.

At present, the artificial intelligence solutions still account for 90% of CloudWalk’s business. Annual revenues for the man-machine collaborative operating system from 2019 to 2021 reached 183 million yuan, 237 million yuan and 136 million yuan respectively, accounting for a relatively small proportion of the company’s overall revenue.

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At present, CloudWalk’s AI solution has enabled the company to excel in the fields of finance, security and travel. At the same time, CloudWalk has begun forming solutions for intelligent manufacturing, smart energy, the metaverse and enterprise management software.