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in the third round of the 2024 us open women's singles, zheng qinwen swept niemeyer 6-2/6-1 and entered the top 16 of the us open for two consecutive years.

interestingly, many people found a familiar face in the cctv broadcast:liu zihong, founder of royole technology, appeared in the stands with a beautiful woman.

in 2018, royole technology launched the "world's first foldable screen mobile phone" before huawei and samsung.

at its peak, its valuation reached 43.5 billion yuan, making it a popular "unicorn" company.

but now, it has entered bankruptcy liquidation, with debts exceeding 4.7 billion yuan and unpaid wages and salaries exceeding 60 million yuan.

as the largest shareholder of royole technology, liu zihong, who holds 38.61% of the shares, has also been restricted from high consumption and leaving the country.

unfortunately, he has inherited boss jia's true skills and has already gone to sea ahead of time.

liu zihong's refreshing life

liu zihong's life experience before the age of 40 could be written into a cool novel.

born in 1983, he was admitted to tsinghua university's electronics major with the first place in fuzhou's science college entrance examination at the age of 17, and received a master's degree at the age of 23.

while an undergraduate, he founded two semiconductor companies.

at the age of 26, liu zihong received his ph.d. in electrical engineering from stanford university in the united states, becoming the fastest chinese doctor to graduate in the history of the university's department of electrical engineering.

after working at ibm for several years, in 2012, 29-year-old liu zihong returned to china to start a business. he found two tsinghua university and stanford alumni, wei peng and fan junchao, and founded royole technology.

the name means "flexible universe". liu zihong hopes that flexible electronic screens will be everywhere in the universe in the future.

in august 2014, royole technology released the world's thinnest color flexible display, which is only 0.01 mm thick and has a curling radius of up to 1 mm.

in june 2018, royole technology invested 11 billion yuan to build the world's first large-scale mass production line for fully flexible displays.

however, the flexible screen produced by royole technology based on non-silicon technology has an obvious shortcoming, namely, the low electron mobility (the movement speed of electrons inside the semiconductor).

the only way to solve this problem is to make the transistors thicker, which results in wide black borders on the screen, low pixels and a strong sense of graininess.

no manufacturer is willing to use its screen to make mobile phones.

in desperation, royole technology started making its own mobile phones.

semi-finished folding screen mobile phone

in october 2018, royole technology launched the "world's first foldable screen mobile phone" flexpai, priced from 8,999 yuan.

it was not until february of the following year that huawei and samsung launched their first foldable screen mobile phones, which were much more expensive.

samsung galaxy fold is priced at 15,999 yuan in china; huawei mate x is priced at 16,999 yuan and is almost impossible to get.

although roupai had the best timing and location, it did not achieve the expected good results. an employee revealed that its cumulative sales volume was only 10,000 to 20,000 units.

the wide black borders, the extra-large folding radius, the very grainy screen, the poor system, the very obvious creases... make the flexpai look like a "semi-finished product" launched in a hurry, so it is normal that it does not sell well.

what should you do if you spend a lot of money to build a production line but still can’t sell the screens?

royole technology has started various operations.

in the 2019 spring festival gala, it used 960 screens to combine into 30 dance costumes.

in 2020, it collaborated with louis vuitton to create the world's first flexible screen handbag.

afterwards, a 5-meter-high "big tree" was erected at shenzhen bao'an airport, hanging more than 500 8-inch cicada-wing flexible screens.

it also cooperated with luzhou laojiao to create a "flexible screen wine bottle".

i don’t know what the significance of these operations is, but they managed to obtain us$300 million in series f financing, with a valuation of over us$6 billion (approximately rmb 43.5 billion).

thanks to this, liu zihong also made it onto the hurun rich list with a net worth of 14.5 billion yuan, ranking 376th.

conclusion

after gaining fame, royole technology began to push for listing on the science and technology innovation board.

but in february 2021, it voluntarily withdrew its listing application.

the prospectus disclosed at that time exposed the true financial situation of royole technology:from 2017 to the first half of 2020, in three and a half years, royole technology had a revenue of 500 million yuan and a net loss of 3.2 billion yuan.

selling goods worth 500 million resulted in a loss of 3.2 billion. whenever boss jia saw this, he would shout "6".

with its listing being blocked and its hematopoietic capacity insufficient, royole technology is facing increasingly tight financial conditions.

after that, the familiar process began: cutting to c business (i.e. mobile phones), laying off employees, cutting budgets, delaying wages, delaying project payments...

on may 15, 2024, the shenzhen intermediate people's court ruled to accept the bankruptcy liquidation case of royole technology, marking that this once glorious high-tech company has officially entered the bankruptcy procedure.

the latest news shows that liu zihong is no longer the chairman and ceo of royole technology. he only remains the founder and major shareholder.

on september 13, royole technology will hold its first creditors' meeting. liu zihong, who has successfully expanded overseas, will most likely not be able to attend.

maybe we can see him again on the sports channel.