By Liu Ran
Shares in battery management systems maker Gaote Electronics (301669.SZ) surged nearly eightfold on their debut on Shenzhen’s ChiNext board on Wednesday, capping a 27-year journey for founder Xu Jianhong and underscoring investor enthusiasm for companies linked to China’s booming energy storage sector.
The Hangzhou-based company, also known as Gold Electronic and often described as China’s leading independent supplier of battery management systems(BMS) for energy storage projects, raised 850 million yuan ($125.4 million) through an initial public offering on Shenzhen’s ChiNext board. The stock opened at 63.65 yuan, up from its IPO price of 7.08 yuan, a gain of 799%.
For capital markets, Gaote is a newly listed energy storage play. For the battery storage supply chain, the company is already a critical — if largely invisible — player. Its BMS sit inside storage projects built by Canadian Solar, Jinko Solar, EVE Energy, Ganfeng Lithium, State Grid and Gotion High-tech. Its core products have been validated by China’s two battery giants, CATL (3750.HK) (300750.AZ) and BYD (002594.SZ) (1211.HK) and it has secured international certifications including IEC and UL standards.
According to industry data from the China Energy Storage Alliance (CESA), the company has ranked first for several consecutive years in China’s third-party energy storage BMS market. In 2025, its global market share reached 27.3%, implying that more than one in four energy storage systems worldwide used its technology.
Riding three waves of China’s battery industry
Behind the 27-year-old company is 63-year-old engineer Xu Jianhong. In 1983 he graduated from Zhejiang University’s radio electronics department alongside a classmate who would later become a household name in consumer electronics: Duan Yongping, the founder of Subor, a bootleg gaming console maker, and a key early figure behind electronics and technology giants Oppo and Vivo. While Duan built an empire of consoles and smartphones, Xu took a slower road — 14 years at a state-owned semiconductor device factory before striking out in 1998 with a single lead-acid battery testing device.
The timing proved fortuitous. Over the following decades, China experienced successive waves of growth in lead-acid batteries, electric vehicle power batteries and, most recently, energy storage systems. Gaote successfully positioned itself in each transition.
Although batteries receive most of the attention in energy storage projects, the BMS segment occupies a critical position in the industry’s value chain. A typical energy storage system consists of batteries, a battery management system, a power conversion system and an energy management system. The BMS monitors key operating parameters including voltage, current and temperature while providing fault warnings, safety protection and cell-balancing functions.
As energy storage installations have grown in scale, safety concerns have become increasingly important, raising the value of advanced battery management technologies. Gaote has built a comprehensive product portfolio around this niche. Its offerings include BMS modules that monitor and manage battery performance, high-voltage control boxes that provide control and protection functions, and integrated control units that handle data collection and centralized system management.
The business has become overwhelmingly concentrated in energy storage. In 2025, storage BMS-related products accounted for 94% of the company’s 1.19 billion yuan of revenue, which has grown at a compound annual rate of 51% over the past three years.
Profitability has improved alongside growth. Net profit attributable to shareholders reached 142 million yuan in 2025, up more than 44% from a year earlier and outpacing revenue growth.
Overseas expansion and proprietary chips
International markets have become a major driver of expansion as energy storage demand accelerates across Europe, the Middle East and North America. Overseas revenue accounted for just 8.71% of total sales in 2022. By 2024, the figure had risen to 39.4%, equivalent to 361 million yuan.
To strengthen its competitive position, Gaote has increasingly focused on developing proprietary semiconductor technology. In 2017, the company began localizing key BMS chips, working with domestic partners to develop products including the GT1812 analogue front-end data acquisition chip and the GT3801 and GT4801 active balancing chips.
According to its prospectus, mass production of the self-developed chips has reduced procurement costs by more than 50% for some products and by over 70% for others.
At the end of 2025, Gaote launched its third-generation GT2818 chip, integrating voltage, temperature and safety valve monitoring functions to provide real-time detection and precise location of thermal runaway risks.
After nearly three decades focused on battery management technology, Xu has finally brought his company into the spotlight through his IPO. While his former classmate Duan became a symbol of China’s consumer electronics boom, Xu has built his reputation in the less visible but increasingly important business of managing the batteries powering the global energy transition.
Source:
New Energy Industry Insights
