On May 27, DeepZero (2723.HK) debuted on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with shares surging more than 260% on its first day of trading. The following day, CEO Grace Huang sat down for a live interview on Bloomberg's "The China Show." Bloomberg headlined the segment: "DeepZero Says IPO Success Signals Strong Belief in AI."
Six questions, covering the issues the market cares about most: Why now? What problem is DeepZero actually solving? And what's the growth playbook after IPO?
17 Years in the Maket
Bloomberg: "What do you think of your stock price?"
Grace Huang: I'm excited to see how the market reacts to our IPO. We've been in this market for 17 years — we started with the vision of using AI to help enterprises, but nobody believed in us. Now, generative AI and large language models have made everyone excited about AI, which for us is already the third generation of AI in application. The market has finally recognized the power of AI and the monetization opportunity it brings to enterprises. As I said at the IPO event yesterday, this is the best timing ever for us.
The Takeaway: For DeepZero, the current AI wave is not a starting point — it's the third generation the company has lived through. The difference is that this time, the market has finally caught up.
The Hardest Decisions Enterprises Face
Bloomberg: "Tell us about the problem that you're trying to solve."
Grace Huang: I come from a P&G and McKinsey background, so we're not a technology-driven startup — we start from the enterprise perspective. Brands, especially B2C consumer brands, face a huge number of decisions: What is the best timing for advertising? What is the best content? How should I recommend products to different customers to generate better cross-sell opportunities? When a customer walks into my store, how should the salesperson interact with them to deliver a more personalized experience and convert better?
All these decisions are extremely difficult at both the individual and enterprise level. But they directly determine the brand's market value, revenue, and profit. These are the hardest, most consequential decisions — and that is exactly what we help enterprises solve with AI.
The Takeaway: DeepZero has not placed itself in the "AI content generation" or "marketing automation" lane — it's anchored at the decision layer.
Not the Chinese Salesforce
Bloomberg: "Does it supplement the salesforce, complement their skills, or does it replace them?"
Grace Huang: In China, most of our clients are multinational companies, and they use Salesforce, Adobe Marketing Cloud, Google, and similar platforms in the rest of the world. But in China, the digital ecosystem is very different. We never claim to be the "Chinese version of Salesforce" or anyone else. We solve similar problems, but with a different emphasis — we are very focused on data and intelligence. We don't do SOP-driven CRM management, but we help enterprises achieve better CRM communication and operation. We're largely in the same arena, just with a different approach.
The Takeaway: Same arena, different path. DeepZero's differentiator is its focus on data and intelligence — not workflow automation.
Two Growth Engines After IPO
Bloomberg: "The proceeds — AI R&D, sales expansion, strategic acquisitions. What are you prioritizing now?"
Grace Huang: M&A has always been our aspiration. If you look at enterprise service companies globally, they've used M&A very effectively — most have completed ten or more acquisitions. But we've relied entirely on organic growth for the past 17 years. After the IPO, M&A will be one of our primary investments and a strategic growth engine, alongside expanding R&D, acquiring AI talent, and building out our sales network.
Another major initiative is overseas expansion. Many Chinese companies are now expanding into international markets, and they need a partner who understands their headquarters' needs, the local culture, and has the international and AI capabilities to help them succeed in new markets. That's a very exciting opportunity for us.
The Takeaway: Seventeen years of organic growth is a rare track record in enterprise software. The IPO unlocks two new engines: M&A and international expansion.
AI Coding Has Changed the M&A Playbook
Bloomberg: "What kind of assets are you looking to acquire? Is it technology? Is it a competitor?"
Grace Huang: Traditionally, enterprise software companies acquire targets for their products and customer base. But with AI-powered coding, we've changed our strategy. We're focused on targets with a solid client base — we don't need to acquire products because we can develop them very rapidly with our AI coding capabilities. So we're looking for companies with strong, established client relationships.
The Takeaway:In the AI era, products can be built fast, but client relationships and trust cannot.
From Inbound to Outbound
Bloomberg: "In terms of the international expansion, what is the strategy and what markets are you looking at?"
Grace Huang: We've already set up international operations in London, the US, Hong Kong, and the Middle East, but so far it's been primarily inbound business — serving local brands with some local interaction. For outbound expansion, strategy number one is working with large Chinese enterprises targeting overseas markets. And number two, of course, is leveraging AI to...
(Recording ends)
The Takeaway:DeepZero's international playbook starts with an advantage few global SaaS companies have: deep relationships with Chinese enterprises that are rapidly going global.
This article is based on a Bloomberg live interview conducted the day after DeepZero's IPO. Full interview clips are embedded above.
