A rare scene.
On August 20, Tec-Do announced the completion of a new round of financing. This round was led by Huatai-General Atlantic, with participation from institutions including Kunpeng Guangyuan, GAC Capital, and GSR Ventures.
Investment界 has exclusively learned that this financing deal was completed in just two months from initiation to closing, with investment interest far exceeding the available allocation, leaving some institutions unable to secure a stake.
Headquartered in Guangzhou, behind Tec-Do stands its founder, Li Shuhao. His career started at Huawei, followed by years of experience at Alibaba. He is known domestically as "the person who understands global traffic best." He has spent nearly a decade bringing Tec-Do to the global table in the AI field. The company's business covers over 200 countries and regions worldwide, and it has taken the lead in partnering with OpenAI, tapping into the trillion-dollar blue ocean of Agentic Commerce. Now, he is leading the charge toward an IPO.
Thus, a grand narrative emerges: Chinese globalized enterprises driven by AI are stepping onto the center stage of the world.
Global Top Venture Capital Makes a Move, Signaling a Trend
The lineup of investors in this round is impressive.
Different from previous ordinary financial investments, this round's investors combine global top-tier growth capital, leading industrial capital, and first-tier venture capital institutions. The collective entry of this diverse capital structure precisely confirms Tec-Do's rare investment value and outlines the main investment theme for the next phase of the AI industry.
Among them, the move by Huatai-General Atlantic is the most noteworthy. This fund is jointly initiated by the globally renowned investment firm General Atlantic and Huatai Baoli Investment Management Co., Ltd., a private equity management institution under Huatai Insurance Group. It combines local industrial resources, long-term capital vision, and global investment experience.
When it comes to General Atlantic, the global venture capital circle is no stranger. General Atlantic currently manages over $100 billion in assets overall and is a benchmark institution in the global growth investment sector. In its past investment portfolio, it has accurately backed global phenomenon-level tech companies like Alibaba, Meituan, ByteDance, Anthropic, and SHEIN, demonstrating strong foresight in cutting-edge industries and global resource integration capabilities.
Among these, General Atlantic's first bet on ByteDance was in 2017 when the latter was valued at approximately $20 billion, a figure that has since soared to over $500 billion today. It can be said that General Atlantic accompanied ByteDance through the complete leap from a "Chinese startup" to a "global tech giant," and this investment proved its judgment on "Chinese AI globalization enterprises."
It is understood that leading this new round of financing for Tec-Do is the first direct equity investment by Huatai-General Atlantic Fund since its establishment. The significance behind this investment giant choosing Tec-Do as the first project for its RMB fund to lead invest in is likely far greater than the investment amount itself, subtly signaling to the market that the next generation of Chinese AI enterprises with global competitiveness has entered the sights of top international capital.
This is also a milestone moment for Tec-Do—being able to secure a heavy investment from top international capital means that the Useful AI path (i.e., "Useful AI," derived from Jensen Huang's perspective), which focuses on vertical business scenarios and is result-oriented, is precisely one of the most certain growth tracks in the eyes of capital, and the most direct recognition of its global development prospects.
Looking at the co-investors this time—Kunpeng Guangyuan and GAC Capital are both well-known industrial institutions. Among them, Guangyuan Capital has invested in star companies like GDS and Chindata Group, while the latter has backed super IPOs like Changxin Xinqiao and Horizon Robotics. Their joint entry will undoubtedly bring profound industrial resources and cross-border synergy capabilities to Tec-Do, helping the company broaden its commercial application boundaries.
As the head of Kunpeng Guangyuan stated, they are optimistic about the development opportunities in the overseas expansion sector in the long term and highly recognize Tec-Do's technical strength, mature product system, and global implementation capabilities in the field of AI cross-border marketing. "In the future, Kunpeng Guangyuan will fully leverage its industrial resource advantages to promote in-depth对接 and cooperation between enterprises within its ecosystem and Tec-Do, empowering domestic brands to go global."
GAC Capital also recognizes Tec-Do's technical capabilities and global operational experience in the cross-border marketing field. With its global network covering key markets such as Europe, America, and Southeast Asia and mature operational experience, Tec-Do highly aligns with GAC Group's needs to accelerate its overseas expansion. The head of GAC Capital stated, "GAC Capital will leverage its own industrial resources to promote the deep integration of AI intelligent marketing technology with automotive出海 scenarios, supporting Tec-Do in expanding into high-ticket vertical industries to achieve two-way synergy."
The follow-on investment by existing shareholder GSR Ventures demonstrates continued confidence in Tec-Do—in the information-asymmetric primary market, additional investment from existing shareholders is often more convincing than the entry of new investors.
Zooming out to a global perspective, as AI conversations begin to reshape information discovery and consumer decision-making, a new wave of Agentic Commerce is sweeping in, and Tec-Do is precisely the frontrunner.
Tec-Do founder and CEO Li Shuhao (second from left) meets with OpenAI's Global Head of Advertising (third from left)
In July of this year, Tec-Do became one of the first global official technical partners for ChatGPT Ads. In the initial customer tests, the marketing costs for a certain overseas brand significantly decreased, with ROI increasing to 2.5 times the original level. This means that Tec-Do has extended its global growth capabilities to the AI commercial entry point—when users converse with ChatGPT, brand information can precisely reach target consumers in the form of agent advertisements, thereby achieving efficient conversion and completing the upgrade from "being seen" to "being chosen."
This scene恰好诠释了更多的投资细节—According to informed sources, this round of financing was completed in just two months from initiation; in contrast, conventional financing cycles typically take 6 months or even longer. The efficient financing process is not only得益于 the company's完善 governance system, clear business layout, and稳健 operating态势 but also stems from its已验证 business model and anticipated growth prospects, enabling investors to complete investment decisions rapidly.
It is reported that the investment意向 for this round far exceeded the allocatable amount, resulting in some institutions ultimately failing to obtain investment stakes. This situation of "investors chasing优质标的" appears particularly稀缺 in the current AI industry environment where valuations are diverging and capital is becoming more rational.
Led by a Former Alibaba Employee, Heading for a Hong Kong IPO
The growth底色 of any enterprise often begins with its founder.
Born in 1989, Li Shuhao studied Electronic Science and Technology at Tianjin University for his undergraduate degree. After graduating at the age of 22, Huawei became the first stop in his career. Subsequently, he joined UC, responsible for开拓 overseas new markets. In 2014, Alibaba completed its acquisition of UC, and Li Shuhao was transferred to the Traffic Business Development Department of the International Business Unit under the Mobile Business Group, still focusing on海外市场拓展.
Before the global AI boom arrived, Li Shuhao was already among the earliest操盘手 of China's digital出海. He understands both globalization and overseas marketing. This深刻理解 of the "overseas expansion"赛道 also prompted him to萌生 the idea of starting a business.
Thus, in 2017, Li Shuhao果断 left Alibaba to embark on his entrepreneurial journey. In his view, Alibaba's strategic focus at the time was not on the出海赛道, but he笃信 that internationalization was the upper limit of business. However,一切开头难. Li Shuhao曾坦言 that during the initial创业阶段, he tried seven or eight projects, but none were顺利.
Later, Li Shuhao decided to聚焦 his创业方向, aiming to establish an AI technology company that empowers enterprise growth, specifically专注于 providing result-oriented AI solutions for the business growth of global enterprises. Thus, Tec-Do was born.
Talking about the寓意 behind "Tec-Do," as a rock music fan, Li Shuhao once revealed that it originates from the American metal band Korn's song "Twisted Transistor," which contains the lyrics: "Lonely life where no one understands you / But don't give up because the music do."
"Tec-Do is the courage to run towards the light in the darkness, the魄力 to break through shackles and create miracles, and most importantly, Tec-Do is an attitude of 'though ten thousand may oppose me, I will go forward.'"
Why最终 choose the direction of AI marketing for创业? Li Shuhao's answer is: On one hand, technically, "AI is not serious." The突破 speed of AI in creative fields such as painting, writing, and filmmaking currently far exceeds expectations and is惊人.
On the other hand, in terms of scenarios, "Chinese enterprises going global are still in the early stages." He points out that many优秀 enterprises that低调 focus on products urgently need to "place advertisements, showcase their strength, and占领 consumer心智" overseas. More importantly, there is also a sense of national sentiment: "We need to represent the Chinese team in developing business globally, using AI technology to combine massive fragmented information to empower brand globalization."
After nearly a decade of深耕, Tec-Do has built a proprietary Titan professional large model as its technological foundation, creating an AI-native, result-driven product矩阵 centered on the Navos marketing multi-agent system,重构 the entire process of global出海 marketing.
As the core technological基石 of Tec-Do, Titan adopts a native Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture. Leveraging the company's近十年出海 experience, it has沉淀实战 data from over 100,000 global advertisers,累计 managing more than 400 million advertising strategies and 14 million SPU data points,构建 a全维度 marketing knowledge graph包含 user analysis, cross-cultural creativity, media strategy, and risk control knowledge.
In January of this year, the Titan问答推理 model ranked first globally in the SuperCLUE advertising marketing professional large model evaluation; in July, the Titan内容理解 model tied for second place with Alibaba's Qwen model in the SuperCLUE-AdsVU "Overseas Marketing Video Understanding" professional榜单. The value behind this lies not only in the ranking itself but also in proving that "professional models"垂直 to commercial scenarios can surpass general large models in specific domains—this is precisely the core logic for AI application-layer创业 companies to outperform large tech firms.
Meanwhile, Tec-Do早在2025 launched Navos, one of the world's first marketing multi-agent systems. During WAIC this year, it又 released Navos 2.0, which can调度 multiple models, tools, and专业智能体 on-demand according to enterprise goals,推动 AI from providing suggestions走向协同执行与结果交付.
As Li Shuhao emphasized, valuable AI is not just about making technology stronger but deeply integrating into the real business of enterprises to持续创造 measurable商业价值. This is precisely the Useful AI path that Tec-Do坚持.
The Tide of Chinese Companies Going Global Hides a Trillion-Dollar Business
Global商业形态 is迎来一场颠覆性变革.
First, look at a set of data—According to McKinsey predictions, AI agents will participate in $3 trillion to $5 trillion of global B2C商品交易 by 2030; Gartner data指出 that by 2028, 60% of brands will rely on agent AI to开展 one-on-one user互动.
These numbers共同呈现 an正在成形的 "Agentic Commerce"时代—Agents will逐步参与 information search, product recommendation, consumer decision-making, and payment transactions,重构 the entire logic of global brand marketing and user connection,彻底改写 traditional商业增长模式.
Clearly, Tec-Do has a清楚的认知前瞻性 of this transformation: Every change in the commercial入口 means a reshuffling. From search to social media, from short videos to AI对话—whoever can提前卡位 the new traffic入口 will gain the先机 in the next round of competition.
Just like Tec-Do's崛起路径: The year after its establishment, it跻身 the official partner阵容 of Google Ads and TikTok; in 2020, it obtained Meta官方合作伙伴资质; in 2023, it became a Snap官方合作伙伴; in 2026, it became an Apple Ads官方合作伙伴......
To this day, Tec-Do has entered the全球主流商业生态 of Meta, Google, TikTok, OpenAI, etc., with business covering over 200 countries and regions worldwide. In 2025, it served over 100,000出海 brands, including a host of知名国际客户 such as SHEIN, Amazon, miHoYo, Tencent Games, Huawei, DJI, Pop Mart, Meituan, and more.
Not long ago, Tec-Do also reached an生态合作 with Tencent WorkBuddy, achieving a强强联合 between垂直专业 Skills and general agent platforms. Not止于此, Tec-Do正持续布局 around Agentic Commerce and A2A (Agent-to-Agent)协作.
In other words, what Tec-Do aims to do is become a关键节点 connecting brands and global consumers in this new商业网络. Meanwhile, this Useful AI path is also transforming into可持续的现金流, which is难能可贵.
In February of this year, Tec-Do正式 submitted its IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. According to the招股书披露: From 2023 to 2024, the company's revenue increased from $73 million to $102 million; in the first three quarters of 2025, revenue reached $130 million, a year-on-year increase of 74.5%. Correspondingly, the adjusted net profit in 2024 was $52.599 million, and the adjusted net profit for the first three quarters of 2025 had攀升 to $55.679 million, with gross profit margin连续三年维持在 above 82%.
In an era where most AI startups普遍 rely on burning cash for growth, Tec-Do has proven with sustained profitability that "AI applications can be a good business,"充分印证了 the商业可行性 and规模化变现能力 of the Useful AI model.
This also echoes Jensen Huang's判断 in his 2026 GTC keynote speech—Useful AI has arrived, and it is profitable. AI is moving from generating content to reasoning, planning, and executing tasks, with its value beginning to be tested by commercial results.
Currently, an不可忽视的事实 is that the divergence trend within the domestic AI industry is愈发明显. Most general AI enterprises rely on financing for输血, have模糊盈利模式, and are gradually seeing valuation泡沫出清; whereas Useful AI enterprises focusing on垂直场景, possessing成熟商业模式, and quantifiable盈利能力 have become核心标的 that capital cannot ignore. Tec-Do is undoubtedly the most representative sample—having already跑通 the complete positive循环 of "technology-product-commercial-profitability."
This is reminiscent of Anthropic, which is about to complete its IPO soon. Enterprise users contribute the vast majority of its revenue, and all its products point to "AI for work," which is颇为相似 to Tec-Do in this regard. The former's latest valuation has already reached an惊人的 $2 trillion.
It is犹记得 that when Li Shuhao first embarked on his entrepreneurial journey, he once shared an宏大愿景 in his heart: "We must build a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars, otherwise创业 is in vain." In the AI era, trillion-dollar companies are being诞生 in batches. We shall wait and see.
This article is from WeChat public account "Investment界" (ID: pedaily2012), author: Liu Bo
