From the Gaokao Cram Room to a Unicorn: Greater Bay Area Entrepreneurial Paths of PolyU's Mainland Alumni (Multiple Accounts Juxtaposed)

Module: 16 Mainland Students and the Two Places (Wild History section) Reading discipline: this module belongs to the 13–16 wild-history section — multiple sources set side by side, no taking sides, no adjudication; named living individuals are handled strictly according to the University's own public commendation materials, with no speculation about undisclosed background; highly sensitive political touchpoints are handled only in the 17–18 link directories. This article focuses on entrepreneurial cases among mainland alumni whom PolyU has publicly commended, and does not generalise to PolyU's mainland student body as a whole, nor represent comparable paths at other universities.

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# I. A gaokao candidate who scored 664, and later founded a unicorn

In 2010, Wang Lei, a gaokao candidate from Yulin, Shaanxi, entered The Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Department of Mechanical Engineering with a gaokao score of 664, and held a full scholarship for four consecutive years^※. This route is no different from that of the many mainland candidates PolyU admits each year through the Mainland Undergraduate Admission Scheme (for the channel itself see 16 Mainland Students · Overview and 02 Admissions · Undergraduate Admissions). According to PolyU's Mainland admissions leaflet^※, PolyU offers entrance scholarships to mainland applicants with outstanding gaokao results, at a level that may cover full tuition for the normal period of undergraduate study, plus a living allowance of HK$65,000 a year, generally for four years depending on the programme (five for some); selected students need not apply separately and are chosen by the University directly from among applicants. Wang Lei's entry into Mechanical Engineering with a score of 664 and his "full scholarship for four consecutive years" is a concrete instance of that arrangement. What makes the episode worth a file of its own, however, is what happened seven years later.

credibility: established (official) — the scholarship amount and selection method are set out in PolyU's official mainland admissions leaflet; the specific fact of Wang Lei's full scholarship is separately recorded in the table below and in the Excel × Impact feature.

According to the feature in PolyU's official publication Excel × Impact^※: after graduating from PolyU with a BEng in Mechanical Engineering in 2010, Wang Lei went on to The University of Hong Kong for a PhD in new-energy storage technology (completed 2014); in 2017 he and friends co-founded EcoFlow, focusing on portable energy-storage devices. In 2021 EcoFlow became a technology unicorn valued at over US$1 billion, with business in more than a hundred countries and regions; as at the date of the feature, Wang Lei's team had obtained 285 patents and published eight research papers on battery and energy-storage technology.

credibility: established (official) — Wang Lei's admission background, degrees, entrepreneurial timeline and honours are all recorded in the feature in PolyU's official publication Excel × Impact, which is University commendation material.

In an interview Wang Lei's own assessment of his alma mater was: "PolyU's excellent academic environment gave me solid professional knowledge and a broad international outlook"^※ — a typical alumni remark, recorded here as stated and without over-reading.

Funding rhythm and latest developments. Cross-checking public financial-media reporting, EcoFlow's funding sequence runs roughly as follows: Pre-A and A rounds completed in 2018 (investors including Delian Capital and Chongjia Capital); an A+ round of several tens of millions of RMB in 2019; a B round of over US$100 million in June 2021, led by Sequoia China, with Hillhouse Ventures and China International Capital Corporation (CICC) among the follow-on investors^※, after which its valuation passed US$1 billion and it formally joined the unicorn ranks; in September 2021 EcoFlow signed a listing-counselling agreement with CICC, beginning preparations for a domestic exchange listing. According to reporting by Bloomberg and Sina Tech in December 2025^※, EcoFlow has instead turned to preparing a US listing, planning to raise at least US$300 million, with proceeds intended for building a first overseas production base in South Carolina (about 40%), research and development in frontier storage technologies such as solid-state batteries (about 30%), channel expansion in the North American market (about 20%) and general working capital (about 10%); the reporting also notes that EcoFlow leads the portable energy-storage category with a global market share of about 25.8%.

credibility: corroborated by multiple sources — the B-round details and the domestic listing-counselling agreement come from cross-reporting in secondary financial media; the December 2025 US IPO preparation rests principally on Bloomberg's report, relayed by Chinese-language outlets such as Sina Tech. This site has not seen a separate statement on the matter from PolyU or from the company itself, so it is graded "corroborated by multiple sources" rather than "established (official)".

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# II. An electronics graduate's warehouse robots: Hai Robotics

Also emerging from the PolyU campus and also joining the unicorn ranks is Hai Robotics. According to the feature in the 85th-anniversary issue of PolyU's official publication Excel × Impact^※:

• Chen Yuqi, a graduate of PolyU's Department of Electronic and Information Engineering (2012), co-founder and CEO of Hai Robotics;
• Fang Bing, a graduate of the same department (2014), co-founder and COO of Hai Robotics;
• the two founded Hai Robotics in 2016, focusing on case-handling warehouse robotic systems; their core product "Cubor" is the world's first automated case-handling warehouse robotic system, capable of raising storage density by 80%–130% and operating efficiency by three to four times;
• as at the date of the feature, more than 1,500 Cubor units had been sold worldwide, with business covering mainland China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Europe, the United States and more than 20 countries and regions, and wholly owned subsidiaries in the United States, Japan, Singapore and the Netherlands;
• the company had obtained over 400 items of intellectual property.

credibility: established (official) — the founders' qualifications and the company figures are recorded in the feature in PolyU's official publication, which is University commendation material; the financial valuation (unicorn status) is separately corroborated by the independent sources in section III.

PolyU provided concrete financial support in Chen Yuqi and Fang Bing's early entrepreneurial years — an RMB200,000 cross-boundary start-up seed fund and HK$700,000 in entrepreneurship funding — which means that in Hai Robotics's growth path PolyU was not only a credential but one of the actual early funders. That detail runs consistently with the current PolyU GBA incubation arrangements discussed in section IV below.

Funding rounds and latest developments. Hai Robotics's subsequent funding has been dense: in early 2022, according to 21st Century Business Herald^※, the company's valuation had reached RMB10 billion; after completing a D+ round in 2022 its valuation climbed above US$2 billion; the company has appeared for several consecutive years (a fourth year as at 2024) on the Hurun Research Institute Global Unicorn Index^※, with business covering more than 40 countries and regions and over 1,300 operating projects worldwide. According to a March 2026 report by ChinaVenture^※, Hai Robotics has completed 15 funding rounds totalling about RMB4.133 billion, with a post-E-round valuation of about RMB10.9 billion; 2024 revenue was RMB1.360 billion, up 68.6% year on year; and the company has begun a Hong Kong listing process, filing a listing application with HKEX, in step with the wider trend of more than ten other warehouse-robotics companies filing with HKEX over the same period.

credibility: corroborated by multiple sources — the D+ round valuation and the number of years on the Hurun unicorn list come from cross-reporting in secondary financial media; the 15 rounds and total raised, the post-E valuation, 2024 revenue and Hong Kong listing application as at March 2026 rest principally on ChinaVenture's report. This site has not seen an HKEX listing document or a separate confirmation from PolyU, so these are graded "corroborated by multiple sources".

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# III. PolyU's presence on the unicorn list

In November 2021 the Hong Kong X Foundation published the "Unicorns HK 2021" list^※, setting out 18 technology unicorns valued at over US$1 billion with "Hong Kong genes" (founded in Hong Kong, incubated there early on, or headquartered there, or with a founder/co-founder who is a Hong Kong resident); the list included DJI, SenseTime, Lalamove, GOGOX, EcoFlow and Hai Robotics.

According to the feature "PolyU Honours Outstanding Alumni" in PolyU's official publication Excel × Impact^※, at least two companies on that list have founding teams including PolyU alumni — EcoFlow (Wang Lei) and GoGoX (Ko Hing-bong, BA in Advertising Design, PolyU School of Design, class of 2008, co-founder and head of marketing and advertising); adding Chen Yuqi and Fang Bing of Hai Robotics, the unicorn founders publicly confirmed by PolyU as alumni number at least three individuals across two companies.

credibility: corroborated by multiple sources — the composition of the "Unicorns HK 2021" list comes from secondary financial-media reporting (pedaily.cn); the correspondence between PolyU alumni and the companies on it follows the names publicly commended in PolyU's official publication (counting only those the University has expressly confirmed, and making no inference of alumni status for other companies on the list absent official confirmation).

From unicorn to listed company: GoGoX's subsequent path. Of the three companies, GoGoX is so far the only one to have completed a public-market listing. According to the public filing on HKEXnews^※ and reporting by Sina Finance^※, GOGOX Holdings Limited (stock code 2246) listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong on 24 June 2022 at an offer price of HK$21.5 per share, with a market capitalisation of over HK$13 billion on its first trading day, then the first intra-city freight company to list in Hong Kong. GoGoX was formed in 2017 from the merger of GoGoVan, founded in Hong Kong in 2013, and "58 Suyun", founded on the mainland in 2014; Ko Hing-bong, a PolyU School of Design advertising-design graduate (class of 2008), is one of its co-founders, with responsibility for marketing and advertising. This complete "unicorn → listed company" trajectory offers a further comparative sample for this article's "cram room to unicorn" narrative: entrepreneurial success need not stop at a unicorn valuation, and the public market is the next stop for some cases but not a necessary path — as at this update, EcoFlow and Hai Robotics remain at the listing-preparation stage and have not listed.

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# IV. This path is not accidental: PolyU's Greater Bay Area entrepreneurial infrastructure

Wang Lei, Chen Yuqi and Fang Bing all located their ventures in Shenzhen — not a coincidence, but a natural extension of the Greater Bay Area entrepreneurial infrastructure PolyU has actively built in recent years.

According to the official page of PolyU's Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship Office^※, PolyU's current GBA Innovation and Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme provides:

• HK$600,000 in seed funding, released in instalments against milestones;
• two years of incubation support, including mentorship, training and expert advice;
• use of the InnoHub co-working spaces PolyU has established in Hong Kong and mainland cities (of which InnoHub@Shenzhen, in Nanshan District, is based at the PolyU Shenzhen Research Institute — see 09 Internationalisation · GBA and Mainland Research Presence);
• market-validation training, mainland study visits, and access to PolyU's Mainland Technology Transfer and Research Institute (MTRI) network.

The programme is funded under the Youth Development Fund's Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area Youth Entrepreneurship Funding Scheme, and as at this site's verification date has publicly listed 12 funded teams (Y01–Y12).

credibility: established (official) — the programme's funding amount, duration and support content are all set out on the official page of PolyU's Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship Office.

The Shenzhen space on which this incubation programme rests has its own definite timeline. According to the "space introduction" page of PolyU's Shenzhen Research Institute^※, PolyU InnoHub@Shenzhen is based at PolyU's Shenzhen Base for Industry-Education-Research Collaboration, was established in 2015, and was formally brought into the University's innovation and entrepreneurship incubation system in 2017, operating joint Shenzhen–Hong Kong incubation; the same page states that since its establishment the centre has been accredited as a "Shenzhen Maker Space", a "Nanshan District Maker Space" and a "Shenzhen Base for Hong Kong and Macao Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship", among others (without specifying the year of each accreditation). Its address is within the "PolyU Industry-Education-Research Building" at 18 Yuexing First Road, South Area, Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Nanshan District, Shenzhen; according to PolyU's 2011 press release on the opening of the base^※, the seven-storey building occupies 5,600 square metres with a total gross floor area of 12,500 square metres. In other words, when Wang Lei founded EcoFlow in 2017 and Chen Yuqi and Fang Bing founded Hai Robotics in 2016, PolyU's entrepreneurial support space in Shenzhen had only just begun or was still being prepared — these alumni entrepreneurs grew, in a sense, almost in step with PolyU's Shenzhen entrepreneurial infrastructure, rather than benefiting one-sidedly from an already mature incubation system.

credibility: established (official) — InnoHub@Shenzhen's establishment in 2015, its incorporation into the incubation system in 2017, its address and the names of its accreditations are set out on the "space introduction" page of the PolyU Shenzhen Research Institute's website; the site area and gross floor area of the base building are from PolyU's official 2011 press release. Both are PolyU first-hand materials, not reliant on third-party investment-promotion platforms.

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# V. Recent developments: where the three trajectories stand in the capital markets (as at 2026-07)

Setting the updates from sections I, II and III side by side, the three cases have moved at three different tempos "after the unicorn":

The gaps in timing point to a plain observation: "unicorn" is only a stage in capital valuation, not an end point. GoGoX took about five years to go from merger to listing; EcoFlow and Hai Robotics each went through a further four to five years of continued fundraising after unicorn recognition and, as at this update, have still not listed. This runs consistently with section IV's observation about whether the institution or the cases came first — PolyU's public materials contain no specific statement on these companies' capital operations after unicorn status, and the content of this section comes entirely from cross-checking public financial media and exchange filings; it does not represent PolyU's official position.

credibility: corroborated by multiple sources — this section is a side-by-side timeline compilation of sources already set out in sections I to III, and contains no new unverified factual assertion.

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# VI. Identity narrative: the triple label of gaokao candidate, overseas student and entrepreneur

Looking back over the trajectories of Wang Lei, Chen Yuqi and Fang Bing, several not-entirely-overlapping identity labels are layered on them:

1. Mainland gaokao candidates / graduates of the mainland admission channel — the way they first entered PolyU fits exactly the structural fact set out in 16 Mainland Students · Composition and Language, that mainland students form a rising share of non-local students; they are specific cases under the same institutional channel;
2. Beneficiaries of Hong Kong higher education — they went through Hong Kong's English-medium teaching environment and mentorship at undergraduate or postgraduate level and have publicly affirmed the experience (as in Wang Lei's "solid professional knowledge and a broad international outlook");
3. Participants in the Greater Bay Area technology ecosystem — their ventures are concentrated in Shenzhen, with products and supply chains heavily dependent on the Pearl River Delta manufacturing base, which echoes the mainland strategy PolyU repeatedly emphasises in 09 Internationalisation · GBA and Mainland Research Presence, centred on the Shenzhen Research Institute and the technology-transfer institute network.

Where the three identities overlap corresponds to the "internationalisation opportunity" reading this site sets out in 16 Mainland Students · Composition and Language — but it must be restated here: two or three publicly verifiable success stories cannot be generalised to the overall experience of PolyU's mainland students. Among PolyU's mainland students, more common paths are further study, employment, or work in Hong Kong (see 16 Mainland Students · Overview on the differences between postgraduate and undergraduate experience); entrepreneurship is only one route, is highly dependent on individual technical accumulation and market timing, and is not representative.

credibility: analytical — the three-identity framing in this section is this site's structural reading of the established facts set out above, not a self-description by PolyU or by the individuals concerned.

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# VII. This site's boundaries: what this article does not do

• Does not take cases as representative of a group: the entrepreneurial success of Wang Lei, Chen Yuqi and Fang Bing does not constitute an assessment of PolyU's mainland students as a whole, and should not be read as a stereotyped claim that "mainland students are better suited to entrepreneurship";
• Does not speculate about undisclosed personal background: beyond the region of origin, qualifications and entrepreneurial timeline expressly made public in PolyU's official publications, this site does not infer or add other personal information about those concerned;
• Does not overstate the causal link between PolyU and entrepreneurial success: a PolyU education and early funding support are verifiable contributing factors, but whether a company ultimately becomes a unicorn (or lists) depends on market, capital, team and many other variables this site cannot verify one by one, and this site does not offer a simplified attribution;
• Does not treat listing rumours about unlisted companies as settled: the listing preparations of EcoFlow and Hai Robotics set out in section V all come from media reporting and, as at this update (2026-07), neither has completed a listing; this site does not prejudge the outcome, nor rule out that plans may change. Readers wanting a fuller comparison of PolyU mainland students' further-study and employment paths may see 02 Admissions · Mainland Gaokao Admissions and 02 Admissions · Graduate Outcomes — entrepreneurship is only a small subset of cases, and most mainland students go on to further study or employment.

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