Two IPOs in One Day: Legend Capital Forges "New Quality Venture Capital Model"

Deep News
Jan 08

The best footnote to the successful practice of the "Beijing Model of Patient Capital." On January 8th, the listing of KNOWLEDGE ATLAS, the "first large model stock," attracted global attention. KNOWLEDGE ATLAS marks the capital market's first welcome of a listed company with AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) foundational models as its core business, signifying a milestone breakthrough in China's AGI field. On its listing day, KNOWLEDGE ATLAS opened at HKD 120 per share, currently boasting a market capitalization of HKD 52.8 billion. On the same day, EDGE MEDICAL-B, a leading enterprise in surgical robots, also successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, opening at HKD 59 per share with an opening market capitalization of HKD 23 billion. Also sharing in the celebratory news were the common shareholders behind both companies: Legend Capital and the Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Special Fund of the National Social Security Fund (hereinafter referred to as the "Zhongguancun SSF Special Fund"), for which Legend Capital acts as the manager. Particularly noteworthy is that the Zhongguancun SSF Special Fund, an important measure of Zhongguancun's "pioneering and piloting" reforms, celebrated its first portfolio company listing. Securing two IPOs in a single day is not only an outstanding report card for the Zhongguancun SSF Special Fund but also provides a vivid "new quality venture capital model" for the cooperation model of "national-level patient capital + market-oriented professional managers." This injects strong momentum into the construction of Beijing's International Science and Technology Innovation Center and the integration of technology industries, simultaneously serving as a successful practice of the "Beijing Model of Patient Capital." KNOWLEDGE ATLAS: The Rise of China's First AGI Stock The story of KNOWLEDGE ATLAS began in 2019. Zhang Peng and others from Tsinghua University's Knowledge Engineering Laboratory had been deeply involved in the development of China's first Chinese-English bilingual language model as early as around 2016. However, facing the "eve" when ChatGPT had not yet emerged and global skepticism about AGI's commercial prospects remained, they embarked on an entrepreneurial journey with the grand vision of "enabling machines to think like humans and using trustworthy AI to make human life better." Large model training is a voracious consumer of capital and computing power; the team faced not only technical challenges but also an extreme test of conviction and patience. The turning point occurred in 2022, when the AI industry was at the most critical yet quietest "eve" before the ChatGPT explosion. Based on its profound insight into technology trends, Legend Capital decisively led an early funding round for KNOWLEDGE ATLAS while the market was still watching from the sidelines. This was not only a timely financial infusion but also a firm strategic endorsement. Subsequently, during the critical growth period from 2023 to 2025, Legend Capital and the Zhongguancun SSF Special Fund made consecutive follow-on investments across multiple rounds, becoming KNOWLEDGE ATLAS's largest institutional investors. Legend Capital's investment went beyond mere financial support; it leveraged the firm's deep accumulation and ecosystem network advantages in technology investing. At critical stages of KNOWLEDGE ATLAS's development, Legend provided comprehensive assistance in strategic planning, talent team building, technology commercialization, and industrial resource coordination, accompanying the company through cycles until its successful market listing today. As China's first listed company with AGI foundational models as its core business, KNOWLEDGE ATLAS achieved technological breakthroughs through its independently developed GLM series models. Its flagship product, GLM-4.5, with its natively integrated reasoning, coding, and agent capabilities, achieved a comprehensive score of 63.2 points across 12 authoritative global benchmark tests, surpassing mainstream international models like o4-mini (high) and firmly ranking first in China and among the top three globally. The coding-specialized version GLM-4.6, launched in 2025, even claimed the top global spot in the CodeArena evaluation. In the renowned authoritative large model evaluation list, the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (AA Intelligence Index), GLM-4.7 topped both the open-source and domestic model rankings with a comprehensive score of 68 points, ranking sixth globally. Relying on a top-tier R&D team of 657 people, KNOWLEDGE ATLAS has built a full-stack capability matrix covering foundational large models, vertical industry models, and intelligent agents, leading the industry in commercialization progress. According to Frost & Sullivan data, KNOWLEDGE ATLAS ranked first among China's independent general large model developers by revenue in 2024. On KNOWLEDGE ATLAS's listing day, Li Jiaqing, President of Legend Capital, stated: KNOWLEDGE ATLAS has successfully solved the challenge of commercializing large models through its self-developed and controllable GLM framework, full-stack model matrix, and MaaS platform. As the AGI era accelerates, we remain optimistic about the company's continuous drive for industrial transformation through technological innovation, building confidence for the development of China's artificial intelligence industry. This listing is not only a significant milestone in KNOWLEDGE ATLAS's development journey but will also provide strong momentum for it to seize the initiative in the global AI competition. EDGE MEDICAL-B: A Leading Domestic Surgical Robot Pioneer Breaking Monopolies If KNOWLEDGE ATLAS represents China's leap forward at the AI frontier, then the story of EDGE MEDICAL-B is one of breaking technological barriers and achieving a market comeback within the operating room. The seeds of its venture were sown early, when founder Dr. Wang Jianchen and his team were deeply engaged in R&D at top overseas medical robotics institutions. Witnessing the long-term monopoly of the "da Vinci" system in the surgical robot field and the heavy burden of exorbitant equipment and surgery costs domestically, a group of scientists and engineers with deep expertise in mechatronics, clinical medicine, and algorithms, holding onto their original aspiration to "make high-end surgical robots accessible to Chinese doctors and patients," gathered in Shenzhen in 2017 to establish EDGE MEDICAL-B. The entrepreneurial journey began with the earliest "original intention" – building a robot system that could compete on the same stage as top international products, with full-chain independent control. This involved the ultimate integration of precision machinery, artificial intelligence, image navigation, and clinical medicine. With the determination to "endure long years of cold bench research," the team攻克ed challenges one by one, from core robotic arms and surgical instruments to master-slave control algorithms. In 2018, EDGE MEDICAL-B's first prototype was born; in 2022, its multi-port laparoscopic surgical robot received approval from the NMPA for market launch, breaking a two-decade-long import monopoly in China in this field and making the company the first in China and the second globally to possess a complete product matrix. At the critical moment when EDGE MEDICAL-B entered the fast lane of development, it caught the attention of Legend Capital. In 2024, when the company's products had just achieved preliminary market validation and needed resources to accelerate commercialization and next-generation technology R&D, Legend Capital and the Zhongguancun SSF Special Fund it manages invested in EDGE MEDICAL-B three times in 2024 and 2025, becoming one of the most important investors prior to the company's IPO. Post-investment, Legend Capital fully utilized its deep industrial resources and post-investment service capabilities in the medical technology sector, providing support in corporate strategy, high-end talent recruitment, and global market expansion, helping the company consolidate its technological moat and accelerate product commercialization. EDGE MEDICAL-B achieved the leap from "icebreaker" to "leader." According to Frost & Sullivan data, EDGE MEDICAL-B sold 20 multi-port laparoscopic surgical robots in China in 2024, ranking first in sales among domestic manufacturers. As of June 30, 2025, the global sales contract volume for the company's core products had reached 61 units, and it had completed over 14,000 robot-assisted clinical surgeries, with product performance and reliability validated by the market. Legend Capital believes that the successful listing of EDGE MEDICAL-B is a landmark achievement symbolizing its breakthrough of international monopolies with original technology and its leadership in the development of the domestic surgical robot industry. With its comprehensive product portfolio, clinically proven excellent performance, and rapid commercialization capabilities, the company has established a leadership position in the domestic market and demonstrated strong competitiveness on the international stage. The Beijing Model of Patient Capital: Collaborative Innovation Between National Teams and Professional Institutions The successful IPOs of KNOWLEDGE ATLAS and EDGE MEDICAL-B on the same day are not only milestones for the two companies but also a concentrated reflection of the operational effectiveness of the innovative mechanism of the Zhongguancun SSF Special Fund. They demonstrate the results of deep cooperation between national-level long-term patient capital and market-oriented, professional investment institutions, serving as the best footnote to the successful practice of the "Beijing Model of Patient Capital." Since its establishment, the Special Fund has achieved significant results. Li Jiaqing revealed in April 2025: "The overall investment progress has reached 60%, with over 70% of the capital invested in the Beijing region. Among the portfolio companies, nearly 40% have received national-level awards such as the National Science and Technology Progress Award or undertaken major national science and technology projects; specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative enterprises account for nearly 70%, with national-level 'Little Giant' enterprises comprising about 45%; 56% of the capital has been invested in technology transfer projects from universities and research institutes. Through co-investment, it has cumulatively catalyzed联动 investment totaling over RMB 24 billion, achieving a capital amplification effect of over 8 times." As the manager, Legend Capital has currently decided to invest in 19 projects. Representative projects include PINS Medical, KNOWLEDGE ATLAS, Galaxy Space, TOPMED Medical, LandSpace, KUNLUNXIN, IONECOS, and ZR Medical, among others. These projects cover cutting-edge technology fields such as AI chips and large models, computing infrastructure, surgical robots, brain-computer interfaces, commercial aerospace, and quantum technology, generally characterized by being "large-scale, difficult, and long-cycle." As one of China's earlier established venture capital and private equity fund managers, Legend Capital has a long-standing relationship with the National Social Security Fund. Since managing its first RMB fund in 2008-2009, the two parties have worked together, collaborating on the management of multiple funds for 16-17 years to date. In addition to managing market-oriented blind-pool funds and the Zhongguancun SSF Special Fund, Legend Capital also participates in managing the Beijing Information Industry Development Investment Fund, forming a capital synergy network capable of covering different stages of enterprise development. Legend Capital believes that technological innovation and venture capital investment have now reached a watershed moment. The core focus has shifted from单纯的 capital supply and scale expansion, and简单的比拼 of "patience," to a more critical dimension – "achievability." Taking artificial intelligence as an example, from the underlying computing architecture and foundational large models to AI/Agent infrastructure and vertical industry applications, each layer needs to spawn outstanding enterprises that can efficiently transform technology into productivity, creating sustainable value and economic benefits. Simultaneously, companies must build competitive moats and scalable advantages amidst rapid development to turn the blueprint of "AI+" into reality. For venture capital institutions, this means returning to their roots, becoming "cultivators" and "builders" dedicated to打通 the virtuous cycle of "technology-industry-finance," embodying the core value of VC institutions as market-oriented, professional fund managers.

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