Qingflow, a No-Code Platform Founded by a Post-90s Entrepreneur, Files for IPO After Seven Years of Growth with Backing from Tencent and Clients Like China Resources Pharma and Weiyun Healthcare

When it comes to technological innovation, the “metaverse” is indispensable. Over the past two years, industries across the board have successively made strategic moves in the metaverse space, sending shockwaves through the market.

On November 21, the 2022 (16th) Entrepreneurship Week and Global Entrepreneurship Week China Station, guided by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, the Communist Youth League Central Committee, and the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, and hosted by the Shanghai College Student Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the Entrepreneurship Foundation or EFG), concluded at the Shanghai International Fashion Center. Over the past week, a metaverse world—linked and created through technological means, mirroring and interacting with the real world—provided innovative startups and industry venture capital institutions with a “zero-distance” interactive experience that transcended the limitations of time, space, and geography.

The openness, interactivity, and diversity of the metaverse have, to some extent, accelerated the shift of people’s lives and work online, objectively alleviating many challenges faced in offline scenarios. At the closing ceremony held on November 21, Bo Zhiyuan, founder of Shanghai Yixiao Information Technology Co., Ltd. (known as “QingFlow”), a company supported by the Shanghai University Students’ Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Foundation, delivered a presentation titled “Innovation and Perseverance Amid the Pandemic,” sharing QingFlow’s reflections and actions regarding technological innovation in the context of normalized pandemic control.

Since its inception, QingFlow Technology has been dedicated to providing digital solutions based on no-code technology, enabling business managers to rapidly build business systems as easily as assembling building blocks, thereby enhancing development efficiency and reducing costs. During the pandemic, QingFlow Technology deployed a mask reservation system within just eight hours to connect small and medium-sized enterprises in Shanghai for epidemic prevention efforts. It also leveraged no-code technology to quickly launch systems for work resumption registration, quarantine site management, temperature reporting, and community team coordination, effectively addressing numerous temporary and dynamic systemic needs.

The allure of no-code lies in its ability to spark considerable imagination during the digitalization process, enabling it to play an increasingly significant role in China’s future digital transformation. In 2022, QingFlow Technology took a further step by launching “QingFlow Academy,” offering a suite of empowerment services for no-code “builders,” including a one-stop learning platform, no-code training camps, and a community for no-code enthusiasts. Furthermore, QingFlow will collaborate with industry partners to expand into a broader range of digital application scenarios.

“Entrepreneurs should not complain about environmental inequities; instead, they should explore pioneering paths suited to the VUCA era,” mentioned Bo Zhiyuan. He added that QingFlow, driven by its mission to empower business through technology, will leverage no-code solutions to lower technical barriers and enable more organizations and individuals to reap the benefits of digitalization through technological innovation.

Qingflow Technology, founded in 2015, is a no-code system development platform that helps managers build customized business management systems through the no-code platform.

No-code platforms are development platforms that enable the rapid construction of application systems without writing any code. They allow enterprise personnel to independently build business systems; by mastering business process models, users can quickly deploy functional options within the interface. System development, testing, and deployment processes that previously took months are reduced to weeks or even less. Business personnel can also adjust and update the system at any time according to evolving business needs.

No-code/low-code solutions first emerged in the early 21st century, but the Chinese market only began to gain significant traction around 2018 and has now entered a phase of accelerated implementation. According to Gartner, the global no-code/low-code market size reached $8.4 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $16.8 billion in 2022. In China, the market size was $282 million in 2020 and is expected to reach $633 million in 2022, maintaining rapid growth over the next five years.

Amid these opportunities, some remain on the sidelines, others are getting ready, while early movers have already solidified their foundations and taken the lead. Qingflow Technology is precisely such a pioneer.

During his graduate studies in 2015, founder Bo Zhiyuan identified a market need while undertaking an internship. While visiting a factory, he observed that although the facility was equipped with office automation (OA) management systems, quality control personnel still relied on Excel spreadsheets and paper records for their daily tasks. “We aimed to develop a tool that would be as simple and user-friendly as Excel, while also systematizing and modularizing business processes.”

QingFlow Technology originated at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Over the past seven years, it has undergone four major upgrades, transforming from a university-born product into an industry-leading no-code platform that provides enterprise-grade business systems and services tailored to diverse organizational roles. Its application scenarios span numerous industries, including healthcare, internet, manufacturing, and retail.

2017 marked the first iteration milestone for QingFlow Technology. At that time, QingFlow Technology rebranded from “ShenQingTong” to “QingFlow” and released QingFlow 1.0, signifying a lightweight process collaboration software.。

Also in 2017, Bo Zhiyuan participated in the Shanghai Graduate Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Capacity Building Program, sponsored by the Shanghai Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Foundation for College Students. In December, he successfully secured funding from the Minhang Sci-Tech Innovation Fund of the Entrepreneurship Foundation. The Graduate Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program is a purely public-welfare initiative jointly organized and implemented by the Shanghai Student Affairs Center, the Shanghai Employment Promotion Center, and the Shanghai Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Foundation for College Students, under the guidance of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, the Shanghai Academic Degrees Committee, the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, and the Communist Youth League Shanghai Committee. It is also one of the series of projects under the “Path to Growth: Entrepreneurial Leadership Development Program” launched by the EFG Entrepreneurship Laboratory.

Having gone through the phases of “Exploration” and “Acceleration,”In 2021, QingFlow Technology entered its “Pilot” phase, launching the data analytics product “QingXi,” as well as “Proprietary QingFlow,” a solution featuring low-code capabilities and a dedicated cloud deployment.

“Qingxi” is QingFlow’s native BI system, offering end-to-end customization capabilities from application building to data analysis. It eliminates the need for additional development work, as QingFlow data can be automatically synchronized to “Qingxi” for analytical purposes, thereby reducing the initial costs for enterprises adopting BI tools. “Private QingFlow” enables enterprises to deploy an independent, dedicated no-code development platform on exclusive cloud resources or their own servers.

Also inIn October 2021, QingFlow Technology completed a Series B financing round of nearly RMB 100 million, led by Qiming Venture Partners and co-invested by Zero One Ventures. Existing shareholders Tencent and Xinjin Venture Capital continued to increase their investments, reflecting their recognition of the value of QingFlow Technology and the no-code industry it operates in.

Qingflow Technology has now cumulatively served over 500,000 enterprise clients. Healthcare is also a key scenario for Qingflow Technology's business expansion, includingChina Resources Pharmaceutical,Weiyun Medical, Siemens Healthineers (formerly Dade Behring), and other major domestic and international enterprises.

Take a medical consumables manufacturer as an example. Operating in an industry subject to stringent regulatory oversight, the client is required to implement new policies within six months, or even as short as one quarter, of their issuance. The conflict between the high demands for production quality management and the inability of traditional information software to rapidly adapt system modules to meet regulatory requirements is precisely where QingFlow Technology’s “Proprietary QingFlow” solution proves its value.

Leveraging its unique business characteristics, the client independently built a dedicated enterprise business system on "QingFlow Private." Beyond featuring an independent domain name, the platform allows enterprise users to fully control additional system configurations, including customized brand identity and user interface.

QingFlow’s robust connectivity capabilities enable enterprise users to achieve seamless data interoperability across multiple systems.For instance, in the SAP system used by this client, only data related to price and value dimensions—such as raw material data, production costs, and sales prices—are visible, while regulatory data such as product license validity periods cannot be matched. By leveraging “Proprietary QingFlow,” the client can integrate these two types of data, enabling a comprehensive view of financial, production, and quality data for individual products, thereby achieving refined management.

The company’s general manager once stated that all business operations across the enterprise are currently running on “QingFlow Proprietary Edition,” with QingFlow serving as the organization’s “middle platform.” Master data is consolidated within the QingFlow system; for instance, after integrating QingFlow with the previously used SAP system, data is synced into QingFlow, enabling the display of comprehensive, multi-dimensional data.

1Minute-level feedback, enabling managers to rapidly convey task information.The single sign-on and WeChat integration features provided by “Zhuanyou Qingliu” also facilitate clients’ daily business management. For instance, when multiple individuals are responsible for the same task, managers can independently edit rules in the “Zhuanyou Qingliu” backend. Based on different task attributes, they can either set up a rotational system that sends task notifications to designated personnel via WeChat for execution, or adopt a broadcast mode that pushes tasks to all team members’ mobile devices, allowing the first person to accept the task to carry it out. This approach replaces traditional phone calls and paper-based information exchange, significantly reducing turnaround time.

In addition, the company has established its own functional requirements: for any interface built on the “Proprietary QingFlow” platform, if users cannot complete and submit the information within one minute, the system must be redesigned and rebuilt.

Beyond its “Proprietary QingFlow” offering, QingFlow Technology has also launched the “Qingzhou Initiative” to build a partner ecosystem. By adopting more open and flexible approaches, the company aims to empower its partners to develop industry-specific digital solutions with deeper application scenarios and broader coverage, thereby achieving a synergistic effect where 1+1>2.Bo Zhiyuan stated that Qingflow Technology also aims to collaborate with more ecosystem partners in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors to jointly advance the industry’s digital and intelligent transformation.

Currently, QingFlow Technology has built a safe harbor with its comprehensive product line, sufficient to protect itself during industry transformations. Where will QingFlow Technology’s next phase of journey and course lead? It is worth our collective anticipation.