CIQTEK 国仪量子
A USTC lab spin-out that became China’s first pure-play quantum precision measurement listing — up 419% on debut, ~RMB 44.1bn market cap out of the gate
CIQTEK (国仪量子, “the company”) was founded in December 2016 in Hefei, Anhui province, with its technology stack traced directly back to the University of Science and Technology of China’s (USTC) Key Laboratory of Microscopic Magnetic Resonance. We view the founding narrative as a textbook “professor-leads-students” tech-transfer case: Chinese Academy of Sciences academician Du Jiangfeng supplied the underlying research base, while his then-PhD students He Yu and Rong Xing drove commercialization.
In December 2016, He Yu co-founded the company (then “Guoyi Limited”) together with Du Jiangfeng, fellow lab member Rong Xing, and Zhang Wei. Among the four founding shareholders, Hefei Sikun contributed RMB 8.228 million in cash for a 40.00% stake and remains the largest shareholder today; Shuhua Technology contributed RMB 2.057 million (10% at formation, now 8.43%) and ranks as the third-largest shareholder. Operating under the tagline “building instruments for the nation” (为国造仪), the company pursued a decade-long industrialization path before filing for its STAR Market listing in December 2025 — under ten years from founding to IPO application.
Born 1992; alumnus of USTC’s gifted-youth program, completing undergraduate through doctoral study without interruption under Academician Du Jiangfeng, PhD in quantum information physics. Co-controls the apex holding vehicle Hefei Sikun with Rong Xing, and separately controls an additional ~7.67% of voting rights through employee shareholding platforms (Hefei Weirao, Hefei Zixuan, Hefei Lizi). Oversees production and operations.
Born 1983; professor and doctoral supervisor at USTC’s School of Physics. Named Changjiang Scholar by the Ministry of Education and selected for the Organization Department’s Young Top-Notch Talent program. Holds an adjunct professorship at Zhejiang University and directs Zhejiang’s provincial key laboratory for high-end scientific instruments; also holds several municipal and provincial political-advisory posts in Hefei and Chongqing. Leads corporate strategy.
Academician Du Jiangfeng — the technical founder and formerly the third-largest shareholder — fully divested his stake via a public block transfer in April 2025, ahead of the listing, “at the request of relevant organizational departments.” The stake was acquired by Chengdu Jiaozi Industrial Fund, Hefei Dunqin, TCL Capital, and GL Ventures (Hillhouse). We read this as reflecting a structural regulatory constraint on academician-level scientists in strategic technology fields holding equity in listed entities, rather than a technology or governance dispute; we would flag, however, that the founders’ combined voting control falls to just 31.38% post-IPO, which we treat as a standalone governance-stability risk (see Section 05). The board separately includes one director each nominated by USTC Holdings (科大控股) and GL Ventures’ Zhuheng affiliate (高瓴著恒), with Shuhua Technology nominating one supervisor.
Building outward from the spin resonance technology base of USTC’s magnetic resonance lab, the company now operates across four core product lines: (1) quantum information technology and spin resonance, (2) electron microscopy, (3) gas adsorption analysis, and (4) measurement-while-drilling (MWD). Its customer base began with academic institutions — Tsinghua, Peking University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Oxford — and has since expanded into industrial accounts including BYD (002594.SZ), CATL (300750.SZ), and BOE (000725.SZ), with cumulative deliveries reported in excess of 1,000 high-end instruments.
| Product Line | Key Products | Revenue Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quantum Info & Spin Resonance | EPR spectrometers, NV microscopes, ION I ion-trap quantum computer, weak-signal instrumentation | Strategic Optionality | Core of the brand identity; current revenue contribution limited. Launched China’s first commercial W-band pulsed EPR spectrometer in 2018 — second country globally after Germany to develop the capability |
| Electron Microscopy | Tungsten-filament SEM, field-emission SEM, FIB-SEM dual-beam systems | Core Cash Generator | Primary beneficiary of import substitution; one of a small number of domestic players with in-house SEM and dual-beam R&D and manufacturing capability |
| Gas Adsorption Analysis | BET surface-area/pore-size analyzers, high-temp/high-pressure adsorption instruments, true-density analyzers | Secondary Growth Vector | Serves new-energy (battery), pharmaceutical, and environmental materials-testing demand |
| Measurement-While-Drilling (MWD) | MWD instrumentation | Niche Segment | Oilfield-services application; a small diversification line within the broader portfolio |
Listing-path policy context: The company listed via the STAR Market’s fourth/fifth listing standard track — the pre-profitability listing pathway the CSRC reopened in June 2025. Notably, it was the first quantum-sector company to complete registration after the CSRC designated quantum technology a key supported industry on the STAR Market in June 2026. We would flag that this timing suggests the listing was substantially catalyzed by policy sequencing rather than organic market pull alone, a dynamic investors should weight when assessing listing-driven valuation support.
The company progressed from an angel round in 2018 through a Series C in late 2021, drawing sequentially on industrial capital, state-affiliated funds, and global venture capital, before converting to a joint-stock company in 2023 and listing on the STAR Market in August 2026. The interval from application acceptance (December 2025) to CSRC registration approval (June 2026) was just six months — in our view, a clear marker of policy tailwinds flowing directly into review velocity for the quantum sector.
Completed shortly after the USTC lab spin-out. Specific deal size was not disclosed in public filings we reviewed; we flag this as an information gap.
iFlytek (002230.SZ) and Keda Guochuang (300520.SZ) — both part of the “USTC-affiliated” industrial capital cohort — participated. The round coincided with stabilized volume production of China’s first commercial X-band EPR spectrometer.
GL Ventures (Hillhouse) led the round, which we understand to be Hillhouse’s first quantum-technology investment. Cowin Capital, Cornerstone Capital, and China Merchants Securities Investment co-invested.
China Reform Fund (a state-affiliated vehicle), CAS Capital, IDG Capital, Hefei Industrial Investment, Songhe Capital, and the Qianhai Mother Fund participated — broadening the cap table across state, domestic private, and foreign-capital investor classes.
Completed the corporate restructuring required ahead of listing. The shareholder register continued to include iFlytek, GL Ventures (Hillhouse), the state-affiliated Guoxin Fund, and Cowin Capital.
At the request of relevant organizational departments, technical founder and former third-largest shareholder Academician Du Jiangfeng fully divested via public block transfer as part of pre-listing governance cleanup. Chengdu Jiaozi Industrial Fund, Hefei Dunqin, TCL Capital, and GL Ventures acquired the stake.
Application accepted December 10, 2025 → listing committee approval May 11, 2026 → CSRC registration approval June 11, 2026. The first quantum-sector company to complete registration following the CSRC’s June 2026 designation of quantum technology as a STAR Market priority sector.
Sponsor/lead underwriter: Huatai United Securities. Priced at RMB 21.22/share, issuing 40.01 million new shares (10% of the post-issue share base of 400.01 million shares). Online retail subscription demand of roughly 5,645x triggered a clawback mechanism, with the final online allotment rate settling at 0.02657%. Shares opened at RMB 110/share, touched an intraday high of RMB 118 (+456.08%), and closed at RMB 110.23 (+419.46%), taking the market capitalization to approximately RMB 44.1bn (~$6.2bn) — securing the company’s position as China’s first listed pure-play “quantum precision measurement” stock.
The high-end scientific instrumentation market has long been dominated by a small set of foreign incumbents — Bruker, Thermo Fisher, Zeiss, and JEOL. Within China’s domestic quantum sector, the company sits alongside two Hefei peers in what local media term the “Three Musketeers of Quantum” (量子三剑客): QuantumCTek (688027.SH) in quantum communication, Origin Quantum (pursuing its own listing) in quantum computing, and CIQTEK in quantum precision measurement — each occupying a distinct, complementary sub-sector. We see the company’s competitive positioning resting on six pillars.
Domestic EPR spectrometer market share exceeding 80% and global share of approximately 25% positions the company as one of a small number of non-Western players directly challenging Bruker’s international oligopoly. The 2018 launch of China’s first W-band pulsed EPR spectrometer made it the second country globally, after Germany, to develop the capability.
Direct access to talent, patents, and research pipelines linked to the “Quantum GDP” ecosystem driven by Academicians Guo Guangcan, Du Jiangfeng, and Pan Jianwei at different stages of China’s quantum industrialization. We would note this same USTC entanglement is also a source of potential IP-dispute risk (see Section 05).
Moving beyond an academic-institution customer base constrained by long budget cycles and hard purchasing ceilings, the company has expanded into trillion-RMB-scale industrial demand — semiconductor inspection and lithium-battery materials analysis. Enterprise customers now exceed 40% of revenue, building a repeat-purchase pipeline at scale.
Local proximity enables faster after-sales response and lower operating costs relative to foreign brands. The company’s ability to service and repair complex imported equipment — not just its own — has, in our understanding, built customer lock-in at institutions including Tsinghua and Tianjin University.
Quantum technology is designated a top-priority future industry under China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, and the STAR Market added a dedicated “quantum” industry category in June 2026. The company was the first to complete registration following this policy adjustment, placing it at the front of the regulatory tailwind.
Delivered China’s first commercial ion-trap quantum computer (“ION I”) in 2023 and, in 2024, what was reported as the world’s first AI-enhanced EPR spectrometer achieving a 10,000:1 signal-to-noise ratio. We view near-term earnings contribution from these assets as limited but see meaningful potential as a longer-dated re-rating catalyst.
Hefei cluster effect: Hefei has assembled more than 100 quantum-supply-chain enterprises and has ranked second globally in quantum-industry concentration for three consecutive years, with roots tracing back to USTC’s relocation to the city in 1970 — a research ecosystem now being translated into capital-markets valuation half a century later. We view this cluster effect as a meaningful driver of the sector-wide re-rating currently benefiting the company beyond its standalone fundamentals, which also implies the reverse: a pullback in sector liquidity could unwind valuation gains just as readily as it built them.
Revenue grew from RMB 400M in FY2023 to RMB 501M in FY2024 to RMB 666M in FY2025, a roughly 29% CAGR, while net loss attributable to parent narrowed sharply over the same period — from RMB 140M to RMB 74.08M to RMB 5.80M — supporting management’s guidance for profitability as early as 2026. That said, accumulated undistributed losses stood at RMB 360M (~$50.3M) as of year-end 2025, and we would flag a discrepancy between the reported figures above and an “adjusted” net-loss series cited in a portion of the financial press (RMB 169M in 2023, RMB 104M in 2024, and RMB 19M in 2025) — we were unable to confirm the precise reconciling items (likely a non-recurring-item adjustment) behind the gap, and treat this as a data-integrity flag pending clearer disclosure.
First-half 2026 guidance points to revenue of RMB 240M–280M (+40.18% to +63.54% YoY) alongside an adjusted net loss of RMB 59M–75M — a wider loss than the company’s entire FY2025 result (RMB 5.8M–19M, depending on which series is used). We would attribute this to the industry’s typical seasonal pattern, in which instrument acceptance and revenue recognition concentrate in the fourth quarter, but we were unable to confirm this explanation directly in company disclosures and flag it as an information gap. We would caution investors against extrapolating full-year profitability trends from first-half results alone.
On the opportunity side, we would highlight ▲ management’s 2026 profitability guidance alongside a clear multi-year trend of narrowing losses; ▲ a 25% global EPR market share that, in our view, represents a genuine import-substitution story against Bruker’s incumbent position rather than a purely narrative-driven one; ▲ diversifying revenue mix into trillion-RMB-scale industrial end markets such as semiconductor inspection and battery-materials testing; ▲ scarcity value as China’s first listed pure-play “quantum precision measurement” stock; and ▲ a supportive national policy backdrop under the 15th Five-Year Plan’s designation of quantum technology as a strategic priority.
On the risk side, we would flag ▲ a post-listing market capitalization of roughly RMB 44.1bn against FY2025 revenue of RMB 666M — implying a price-to-sales multiple near 66x for a still-loss-making company, which we view as an extreme valuation gap relative to fundamentals following the day-one 419% rally; ▲ patent-ownership and potential-dispute risk vis-à-vis USTC that regulators explicitly raised during listing review; ▲ founder voting control of just 31.38% post-IPO, a relatively thin governance buffer; ▲ a roughly 38% shortfall in net proceeds versus the original fundraising plan, requiring prioritization across the three funded projects; ▲ pricing pressure from better-capitalized foreign incumbents (Bruker, Thermo Fisher, JEOL); and ▲ a valuation narrative that we believe leans disproportionately on the quantum-computing segment (ION I) relative to its current, still-limited revenue contribution.