On January 16, 2026, a familiar yet heavy name was added to the list of companies seeking follow-on financing in the Hong Kong stock market—UNISOUND. Before the trading session on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, the company announced a proposed placing of 7.8 million new H shares on a best-efforts basis, priced at HKD 252 per share, representing a discount of approximately 16% to the previous day's closing price, with expected net proceeds of HKD 192 million.
This company, which had debuted on the Hong Kong stock market on June 30, 2025, with the光环 of being the "first AGI stock," saw its share price surge over 44% on its first trading day. By the time of the placing announcement, UNISOUND's total market capitalization still stood at HKD 19.9 billion, but had significantly retreated from its post-listing peak of over HKD 60 billion.
The capital raising is aimed at alleviating困境. This share placement fundraising comes just six months after its listing. According to the company's announcement, the placing shares represent approximately 1.84% of the enlarged issued H share capital, priced at HKD 252 per share, a discount of about 16% to the previous trading day's closing price of HKD 300.
According to the plan, the net proceeds of approximately HKD 192 million will be used primarily for three areas: about 50% for enhancing R&D capabilities; approximately 40% for investing in emerging business opportunities; and the remaining 10% for supplementing working capital and general corporate purposes.
More notably, on the day the placing announcement was released, UNISOUND's cash reserve situation became a market focus. As of the end of 2024, the company's cash reserves were a mere CNY 156 million, while its net loss for that year reached a substantial CNY 454 million.
Calculating at this cash burn rate, UNISOUND's cash reserves could only sustain operations for about four months. This is the fundamental reason why the company urgently needed to raise funds again shortly after its IPO.
Although the 2025 interim report showed the company's cash and cash equivalents increased to CNY 242 million (approximately HKD 271 million), considering the net loss for the first half of 2025 had already reached CNY 297 million, funding pressure remains evident.
UNISOUND has long been trapped in a paradoxical cycle of "increasing revenue without increasing profit" since its establishment. Financial data shows that from 2022 to 2024, the company's revenues were CNY 601 million, CNY 728 million, and CNY 939 million respectively, maintaining a growth trend.
Correspondingly, net losses for the same periods were CNY 366 million, CNY 375 million, and CNY 454 million, accumulating to over CNY 1.2 billion in total losses. The scale of losses has shown a clear expanding trend alongside revenue growth.
High R&D investment is one of the primary reasons for the losses. From 2022 to 2024, the company's R&D expenditure as a percentage of revenue remained in the 30%-40% range, almost exhausting the entire gross profit for those years.
The company's customer growth has also nearly stagnated. From 2022 to 2024, the number of customers for its Lifestyle AI business was 373, 389, and 411 respectively. The number of customers for its Medical AI business was 165, 167, and 166 respectively, showing stalled growth over three years.
More worryingly, the customer retention rate for the medical business has been continuously declining: 70.4%, 64.8%, and 53.3% from 2022 to 2024. This means nearly half of medical customers chose to leave after one year of cooperation.
UNISOUND's financial困境 is also reflected in its operating cash flow. Over the past three years, its net cash flow from operating activities has been continuously negative, with a cumulative outflow exceeding CNY 770 million.
Its accounts receivable days outstanding reached a high of 283 days, indicating weak collection capabilities, which无疑 adds insult to injury for a cash-strapped startup.
As one of China's earliest AI startups, UNISOUND was founded in 2012 and was once highly favored by capital. The company secured funding almost every year after its establishment, attracting participation from over 30 capital institutions and completing a total of 10 funding rounds.
However, in the fiercely competitive AI market, UNISOUND's market share is not optimistic. According to Frost & Sullivan data, by revenue, UNISOUND was China's fourth-largest AI solutions provider in 2024, but with a market share of only 0.6%. In the same year, it ranked third in China's Lifestyle AI solutions and fourth in Medical AI services and solutions by revenue.
In comparison, the combined market share of China's top five AI solutions providers in 2024 was 14.7%, with the top three players holding market shares of 9.7%, 2.3%, and 1.8% respectively—several times or even dozens of times larger than UNISOUND's share.
The market has witnessed UNISOUND's direct confrontations with industry giants. In December 2020, UNISOUND claimed a 70% market share in the smart home voice market in its prospectus, but was publicly challenged by iFlytek, which called the data "seriously inconsistent with the facts."
iFlytek promptly countered with data, pointing out that UNISOUND's voice appliance partners covered only 112 companies during the same period, significantly fewer than iFlytek's, and that the revenue gap between the two was continuously widening. This "Rashomon" incident exposed the现状 of the voice AI industry: blurred technical barriers and scenario implementation capabilities becoming the key to success.
UNISOUND has chosen two main tracks: Smart Life and Smart Healthcare. The Smart Life business contributes nearly 80% of the company's total revenue, reaching CNY 740 million in 2024, accounting for 78.8%; the Medical business revenue was CNY 200 million, accounting for 21.2%.
But both fields face pressure from giants. In the lifestyle场景, companies like Baidu and Alibaba bundle sales through cloud computing; in the medical field, iFlytek deeply binds public hospital channels through its "Medical+AI+Cloud" trinity strategy.
This placing comes just six months after UNISOUND's listing in Hong Kong, marking its fourth attempt to access capital markets. The company had previously submitted a prospectus to the Shanghai Stock Exchange in November 2020, aiming to become the "first AI voice stock" on the STAR Market, but withdrew the application just three months later.
At that time, AI companies普遍 faced issues such as unclear profit models and inflated valuations, while regulators were increasingly stringent in their scrutiny of tech innovation enterprises. These factors likely became "stumbling blocks" for UNISOUND's STAR Market IPO.
After switching to Hong Kong, UNISOUND's fundraising scale was significantly reduced. Compared to the planned IPO fundraising amount of CNY 912 million for the STAR Market, the Hong Kong IPO raised a maximum of only HKD 320 million, a decrease of nearly 65%.
The valuation logic of capital markets for AI companies is undergoing profound changes. An interviewed sponsor pointed out: "Compared to the AI industry investment frenzy in 2021, investors now pay more attention to verifiable commercial落地 capabilities rather than单纯的技术叙事."
UNISOUND's listing also introduced strategic partners. The company brought in SenseTime, Zhenyi Asset, and Runjian Co., Ltd. as cornerstone investors. Among them, SenseTime has quite a connection with UNISOUND, as their founders are both alumni of the University of Science and Technology of China.
On the day UNISOUND began its offer for subscription, SenseTime formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement with it, stating they would协同创新 in multi-modal交互 such as voice and vision. This "alumni enterprise" cooperation relationship might bring more resources and opportunities to UNISOUND.
The allocation of the placing proceeds also reflects an adjustment in the company's strategy: 50% for R&D, 40% for investing in emerging business opportunities, and 10% for working capital.
Compared to the previous IPO fundraising focus on project construction in vertical fields like chips and smart hospitals, this placing positions AI R&D and commercialization as equally important.
UNISOUND is attempting to find a breakthrough in the AI healthcare track. In December 2025, the company launched its medical field expert large model, "Shan Hai Zhi Yi Large Model 5.0."
This model achieved first place in three categories—Medical Agent, Medical Large Language Model, and Medical Multi-modal Large Model—at the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Institute's MedBench4.0 evaluation in December 2025, becoming the industry's only "triple crown" winner.
Currently, UNISOUND's smart medical products have been deployed in nearly 400 hospitals, with over 700 more in the testing phase. In application场景, its outpatient medical record generation system achieved a direct citation rate of nearly 90% for single medical records at Friendship Hospital.
With OpenAI's official launch of its healthcare-specific product ChatGPT Health and the OpenAI for Healthcare platform, attention on the AI healthcare track has surged dramatically. This might bring new development opportunities for UNISOUND.
Policy层面 is also releasing positive signals. In November 2025, five departments including the National Health Commission jointly issued the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting and Regulating the Application Development of 'Artificial Intelligence + Healthcare'", setting clear goals for initially building an AI medical application system by 2027 and achieving deep integration by 2030.
UNISOUND founder Huang Wei once stated: "Using Hong Kong as a支点 to bring Chinese AGI products to the world!" But the immediate reality is that the company must quickly prove its commercialization capabilities.
A Guotai Junan research report once gave UNISOUND an "Add" rating with a target price of HKD 451.33, forecasting revenue would maintain超35% high growth from 2025 to 2027.
However, if UNISOUND's phenomenon of increasing revenue without increasing profit does not improve in the short term, the market will likely "vote with its feet." As the large model AI market enters an "elimination round" phase, capital is开始认真审视 the commercial substance of each company.
UNISOUND's share price has declined from its post-listing high of HKD 319.80 to HKD 300 before the placing, and further to the discounted placing price of HKD 252. Its market capitalization has adjusted from the glorious moment of over HKD 60 billion to approximately HKD 20 billion.
For this 13-year-old AI company, the HKD 192 million from the placing might alleviate the immediate crisis, but the real challenge is how to transform technological leadership into sustainable profitability.
On the smart healthcare track, UNISOUND's "Shan Hai Zhi Yi Large Model" has demonstrated technological potential, but commercialization in the medical field requires longer validation cycles and stronger customer trust. Meanwhile,持续扩大的亏损 and funding pressure are racing against time.
As the patience of capital markets gradually wears thin, the time window for UNISOUND to prove itself is narrowing.
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