Shares of Shanghai-based energy storage maker Sigenergy Technology soared in their trading debut Thursday, as investors bet on the company's growth potential amid rising electricity demand from AI and the energy crisis caused by the Iran war. The stock rise has made the company’s founder, Xu Yingtong, a billionaire.

The company’s shares doubled on their first day of trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange. 51-year old Xu, who serves as chairman and CEO of Sigenergy, has a net worth of $2 billion based on his stake in the company, according to Forbes estimates.

Founded in 2022, the company now sports a market capitalization of HK$90.5 billion ($11.5 billion). It raised HK$4.4 billion in the IPO, which saw the retail tranche oversubscribed 1,102 times. The listing attracted over a dozen cornerstone investors including Hillhouse, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and UBS Asset Management. Sigenergy plans to use the proceeds for research, marketing and production expansion purposes, according to its prospectus. The company didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.

Its growth prospects are bright because the Iran war led the world to prioritize stable energy supply and alternative sources of energy, says Kenny Ng, a Hong Kong-based securities strategist at Everbright Securities International. As the shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz disrupts oil supply and causes power shortages—with Southeast Asia being one of the hardest hit regions globally—energy storage companies are now in focus because their products can help to bring additional electricity online.

Sigenergy, on its part, is best known for its SigenStor system. Consisting of parts including a battery pack and a solar inverter, the hardware can store electricity generated from renewable sources and release them when needed. The global data center buildout is also leading to rising uses of such hardware, as the training of AI consumes more and more energy.

“There is a high demand globally for energy storage products,” Ng says. “The industry is developing rapidly.”

In 2025, Sigenergy’s sales jumped almost seven times to 9 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) from a year ago. Net profit soared a whopping 34.8 times to 2.9 billion yuan, according to its prospectus. The company’s top markets include Australia, Vietnam, Germany and Sweden, its prospectus shows. Mainland China only accounted for 1% of sales last year, as the business is fairly global.

Xu seems to have set his sights on building an international business since day one. As the selling prices in overseas markets are higher than those in mainland China, the company has rapidly expanded “our global footprint as part of our international growth strategy” since its inception, according to the prospectus.

Prior to founding Sigenergy in 2022, Xu spent more than two decades climbing the corporate ladder at Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in radio technology from the Nanjing University of Science & Technology, he joined Huawei in 1999. Before his departure, Xu was president of Huawei’s Ascend AI Computing business, which develops AI infrastructure products based on the company’s Ascend series of chips. Sigenergy’s 41-year-old president, Zhang Xianmao, is also a Huawei veteran, having worked there for 11 years and once led its photovoltaic inverter business. Xu’s wife, 46-year-old Yang Ting, is a non-executive director responsible for providing professional advice to the board, according to the prospectus.

© Forbes