By LU Keyan, XU Shiqi, GE Zhenwei
Once a unicorn, now another fraud suspect, there may be one more twist in the Royole tale. In a blogpost, scholar and independent director LIU Shuwei has called on the Shenzhen government to save the display maker, pleading the company is China’s best hope in flexible display technology.
Royole, founded in 2012, was once the star of Shenzhen’s tech scene. It promised to break Samsung’s monopoly on flexible displays, and at one point was valued at US$6 billion (38.2 billion yuan). Last year, in severe financial distress, workers and suppliers went unpaid for months.
The Shenzhen government has reportedly been aware of the matter since last year. Within the investment circle, the topic is considered sensitive and is rarely discussed: Royole is widely considered a failure and no government money should not be thrown at it.
Royole once attracted about 10 billion yuan from investors including Shenzhen Capital Group and IDG. It has some products but has never come up with anything original nor turned a profit. A factory that was supposed to produce 50 million units a year made only 50,000. Founder and CEO LIU Zihong was once blacklisted for owing 95 million yuan. Liu said Royole was busy with important stuff like R&D and didn’t have time for trivia like marketing and sales.
Recently, Royole has secured orders from Shenzhen CIOT Robots worth 3 billion yuan, and a secret buyer with 600 million yuan to spend in the next two years. Sounds nice, but people familiar with CIOT say it doesn’t have that much money. As for the secret buyer, that’s anyone’s guess.
Royole tried to raise money in the stock market twice and failed twice. A US IPO was scratched in early 2020 - blame the pandemic. Another bid to enter Shanghai’s STAR market ended under a regulatory shadow.
