AI-Driven Drug Delivery Pioneer JETTAI Biotech Soars in Hong Kong IPO

"First AI Drug Delivery Stock" Arrives.

On May 13, METiS TechBio officially went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. As soon as the market opened, the company, which aims to be the "SpaceX of the pharmaceutical industry," saw its share price surge over 180% from the offering price of HK$10.50, with a market value exceeding HK$34 billion.

This fiery phenomenon has long been predictable. On the day before its listing, the company's share price surged over 180% in the gray market trading. During the subscription period, METiS TechBio was highly sought after by the market. With a subscription rate of 5,130 times, it became one of the most oversubscribed IPOs in the Hong Kong stock market since 2026.

More crucially, under the backing of BlackRock, UBS, Mirae Asset, Orix, Deerfield, RTW, Lake Bleu Capital, Walden International, Hillhouse, IDG Capital, China Fund for Innovation Investment, GF Fund Management, ICBC Credit Suisse Fund Management, China Asset Management, and Fullgoal Fund Management, METiS TechBio secured $148 million in cornerstone subscriptions, setting a new record for AI pharmaceutical IPOs on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

As METiS TechBio successfully goes public, the investors who have accompanied its growth—Sequoia China, Frees Fund, Lightspeed China Partners, Source Code Capital, 5Y Capital, CICC Capital, Monolith砺思资本, XtalPi, Beijing Medical and Health Industry Investment Fund, and Daxing District Industrial Investment Fund—are also reaping their well-deserved rewards.

Three Ph.D. Entrepreneurs Aim to Be the "SpaceX of Pharmaceutical Industry"

The story of METiS TechBio begins with three doctors.

In 2011, after graduating from the Department of Chemical Engineering at National Taiwan University, Lai Cai-da came to MIT for an integrated master's and Ph.D. program. Influenced by the strong entrepreneurial atmosphere on campus, he not only co-founded a water purification technology company but also met the core team of XtalPi, who were postdoctoral researchers at MIT, paving the way for the future establishment of METiS TechBio.

Although water purification technology companies can save 90% of household water usage, the relatively low cost of water in the U.S. market leads to weak willingness among local users to pay. This also made Lai Caida realize that even with excellent technology and products, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee business success, prompting him to join McKinsey.

In addition to receiving systematic business training, Lai Caida also gained deep insights into how large pharmaceutical companies view AI drug discovery while working on digital strategies for major pharmaceutical enterprises at McKinsey. Gradually, he clarified the idea of starting a business in the AI drug discovery sector. Thus, starting from 2017, he and Chen Hongmin jointly incubated a project within XtalPi, which later became METiS TechBio.

At that time, Chen Hongmin served as a scientific advisor to METiS TechBio and had extensive experience in the biopharmaceutical field. After earning her Ph.D. from MIT, she worked at renowned pharmaceutical companies such as Merck and AstraZeneca, and also facilitated the successful U.S. launch of two nanomedicine products, later becoming the first Chinese female member of the National Academy of Engineering.

While the mainstream direction focuses on the binding of protein pockets with small molecules, Lai Caida and Chen Hongmin believe that large-molecule drugs have broader pharmaceutical potential. "Large molecules can directly repair different codes within cells to achieve therapeutic effects." After determining the importance of precisely delivering large-molecule drugs to the 'disease site,' they decided to build their company into the 'SpaceX of the pharmaceutical industry.'

"SpaceX won't custom-build a rocket exclusively for NASA, and we won’t develop a delivery system tailored solely for one pharmaceutical company," Lai Caida once told the media. The company focuses on creating a universal, reusable delivery platform, allowing pharmaceutical companies to directly "ride" their system to bring drugs to market.

To better develop, they chose to officially embark on their entrepreneurial journey in China, which boasts a complete, fast, and cost-controllable biopharmaceutical supply chain. Ultimately, Cai-Da Lai, Hong-Min Chen, and Dr. Wen-Shou Wang, former research scientist at MIT, co-founded METiS TechBio in 2020.

A Product with Total Milestone Payments Exceeding 1.8 Billion Yuan

At the beginning, METiS TechBio's development was not smooth.

Due to the limited exploration in the direction of macromolecular drug delivery, they once faced the dilemma of lacking data, algorithms, and models. After extensive experiments, this company chose lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) as the drug delivery vehicle and will launch the world's first AI nanodelivery platform, NanoForge, in 2025.

Relying on a library of over 10 million structured lipids, this platform can achieve targeted delivery to organs or tissues such as the gastrointestinal tract, liver, lungs, heart, immune organs, brain, muscles, and tumors, and reduce the average development time for targeted LNP or small molecule formulations to 2-3 months.

Based on the NanoForge system, METiS TechBio has established three independent platforms with different functions that complement each other, and possesses capabilities in carrier design, nucleic acid sequence optimization, in vivo delivery, and efficacy release. Among them, AiTEM focuses on small molecule dosage form design, AiRNA focuses on mRNA sequence optimization, and AiLNP focuses on LNP design.

In addition to providing drug delivery services to customers, this company also leverages an AI platform to accelerate its in-house drug pipeline. Currently, they have over 10 pipeline products, including several discovery-stage candidates, four preclinical candidates, three clinical-stage products, one pre-NDA product, and two animal health products.

The fastest progressing product among these is MTS-004, which took only 38 months from project initiation to successful completion of Phase III.

According to their statement, MTS-004 is the world's first AI-powered innovative drug formulation to complete Phase III clinical trials, used to treat dysphagia caused by pseudobulbar affect (PBA) and can cover a large number of patients with ALS, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease.

Currently, their MTS-004 has been licensed in 2025, with an upfront payment of 100 million yuan. The total milestone payments for the PBA indication amount to 1.845 billion yuan, with an additional potential indication expansion milestone payment of 100 million yuan.

With market recognition, METiS TechBio's revenue skyrocketed. According to the prospectus, their revenues for 2023, 2024, and 2025 were 9.3 million yuan, 1.5 million yuan, and 105 million yuan, respectively. Notably, the upfront payment from the product collaboration for MTS-004 contributed to the majority of the company’s revenue in 2025.

The reason behind this phenomenon is that their previous focus was on advancing and validating the NanoForge platform and core technologies, rather than pursuing widespread commercialization. "These initial revenues represent our preliminary commercialization efforts, as we are still in the early stages of validating the AI-powered nanotechnology platform."

Due to factors such as R&D, METiS TechBio is still in a loss-making state. According to the prospectus, their net loss narrowed from RMB 582 million in 2023 to RMB 392 million in 2025, while the adjusted net loss decreased from RMB 347 million in 2023 to RMB 180 million in 2025.

As the business model of "platform technology cooperation + self-developed pipeline IP licensing" is gradually validated, the commercialization progress of this company is expected to further accelerate.

Stock Price Surges 180%, Investors Make a Killing

Along the way, METiS TechBio has completed 8 rounds of financing.

During his time at MIT, Lai Caida met Li Feng, the founding partner of Frees Fund, and gained his trust. Although his first entrepreneurial project did not receive approval from Li Feng, the latter believed in Lai as a person and promised to blindly invest in any future project he pursued, as long as the total addressable market exceeded $1 billion.

Since investing in XtalPi in 2016, computational/AI-driven biotechnology, including AI drug discovery, has become a key investment theme for Frees Fund. Building on previous commitments and strong confidence in METiS TechBio, Frees Fund led the angel round of this company and subsequently participated in follow-up investments during the angel+, Pre-A, and A rounds.

At that time, XtalPi also announced its collaboration with METiS TechBio. Li Feng stated, "METiS TechBio has a unique and solid foundation in formulation technology and data. With XtalPi's support, METiS TechBio can gain valuable experience in the AI + drug screening field, which is undoubtedly a significant advantage for METiS TechBio." In the view of Ma Rui, a partner at Frees Fund, METiS TechBio has a promising direction. Novel formulation drugs have great potential in both China and the U.S., and AI and computational methods are feasible and capable of creating differentiation. Moreover, the team possesses interdisciplinary expertise in pharmaceuticals, chemical engineering, and computation, with strong learning capabilities.

In February 2020, METiS TechBio completed its angel round of financing, with investors including Frees Fund, Source Code Capital, and others. At the time, Source Code Capital placed significant emphasis on the application of AI in the medical and pharmaceutical fields and was continuously focusing on innovation and transformation. Subsequently, Source Code Capital also increased its investment in METiS TechBio in subsequent rounds.

As one of the earliest investors in METiS TechBio, Sequoia China identified AI-driven drug discovery as a key investment focus around 2019. After learning that Cai-Da Lai was preparing to start a business in the AI + pharmaceuticals field, they arranged a meeting with him. According to Yuan Gong, a partner at Sequoia China, thanks to the rapid decision-making mechanism of Sequoia China's Seed Fund, they decided to issue an investment term sheet on the spot after their discussion.

At that time, METiS TechBio had not yet been officially established, and had not even completed its business registration. With the collaboration of investors from both the technology and healthcare sectors, Sequoia China not only became a shareholder of METiS TechBio during the Angel+ round but also became the investment institution with the most follow-on investments through five rounds of funding. Prior to the IPO, Sequoia China held 6.89% of the shares, making it the second-largest institutional shareholder.

The reason for the long-term optimism and support for each other stems from Sequoia China's ability to understand and evaluate the value of METiS TechBio from multiple dimensions. "In the early stage of the project, both the technology team and the healthcare team focus on the people and direction," said Gu Cuiping, Managing Director of Sequoia China, who is responsible for the healthcare sector. As the project progresses to the middle and later stages, the technology team pays more attention to the leading nature of the algorithms and the scalability of the platform, while the healthcare team focuses more on pipeline progress, data, target selection, and the rationality of clinical direction, thereby showcasing different professional strengths.

Also focusing on AI pharmaceuticals in 2019 was Lightspeed China. According to Gao Jiankai, who was then an Assistant Partner at Lightspeed China and is now a Partner at GSH Ventures, he was deeply impressed by METiS TechBio after his first conversation with Lai Caida and maintained very close communication with them. When the Pre-A round of financing began, Lightspeed China became the first institution to engage with the company and quickly led the investment.

In Gao Jiankai's view, Lai Caida, who has a scientific research background, understands business very well and is highly entrepreneurial. He also possesses strong cross-disciplinary integration capabilities and is skilled at connecting people from different disciplines and industries. "At that time, METiS TechBio insisted on pursuing the rarely noticed direction of 'AI + drug delivery,' achieving absolute differentiation. Moreover, we believe there is much more potential to explore in this area."

In addition to Lightspeed China, the lead investor, the investors who participated in the Pre-A round of METiS TechBio in November 2020 also included 5Y Capital, Sequoia Capital China Seed Fund, Frees Fund, XtalPi, and IMO Ventures. Since then, 5Y Capital has ultimately invested in this company four times in a row.

The reason behind this is that every time Jing Xutian, a partner at Five Sources Capital, talks with Lai Caida, he feels like he "didn't secure enough shares." In his view, Lai Caida is an entrepreneur who is always energetic, sunny, and optimistic, constantly thinking positively about the company's next goal and how to allocate resources. "In a changing environment, Lai Caida is always an entrepreneur who can continuously adapt and seize opportunities."

With the development of small-molecule high-throughput wet experimental platforms, the launch of AiRNA and AiLNP, and the initiation of the MTS-004 development plan, METiS TechBio completed two rounds of financing consecutively in 2021. The investors included Five-Star Capital, Lightspeed China Partners, XtalPi, Sequoia Capital China, Yuanmu Chenxing, Frees Fund, China Life Equity Investment, CMB International, PICC Capital, IMO Ventures, and Duckling Fund.

Starting from January 2022, this company has successfully completed two rounds of financing consecutively over a span of two years. The investors include Sequoia China, FiveSource Capital, Monolith LSi Capital, PICC Capital, CICC Capital, China Taiping, Tianjin Taixi, Martis Fund, and others. It is during this process that their business has achieved a series of new developments.

At that time, in addition to completing the construction, optimization, and internal validation of the Datalots high-throughput screening platform, METiS TechBio's MTS-004 also received IND approval from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) and completed Phase I clinical trials. Moreover, the company not only discovered a lead liver-targeting LNP but also developed an artificial intelligence RNA design platform and improved the AiRNA platform, among others.

By July 2025, METiS TechBio had secured 3.5 billion yuan from the Beijing Pharmaceutical and Health Industry Investment Fund and the Daxing District Industrial Investment Fund, reaching a valuation of $1.049 billion. Meanwhile, they relocated their company from Hangzhou to Beijing, becoming a pillar enterprise of Beijing's biopharmaceutical industry OpenCGT platform.

Accompanied by the sound of the listing gong, the company's stock price surged 180% at the opening, with a market value exceeding 34 billion Hong Kong dollars, rewarding their long-term investors handsomely.

Take Sequoia China as an example. As a representative company of the investment institution's "from seed to IPO" full-stage investment, METiS TechBio is not only the first IPO invested by Sequoia China Seed Fund since it became independent in 2018, but also the first "home run" project of Sequoia China Seed Fund Phase I.