Shanghai's Specialized and Innovative Board's Two-Year Anniversary: Nearly 600 Companies Listed, Driven by Regulation and Financing

At the event in Shanghai for the opening of the “Specialized, Refined, Unique, and Innovative” (专精特新) board and the launch of the warrant options pilot—marking the second anniversary of the start, along with an ecosystem event for the development of SMEs that are 专精特新—hundreds of SME executives and representatives from financial institutions gathered. “Regulation” and “financing” were the key topics in their discussions.

Over the past two years, the Shanghai Specialized, Refined, Unique, and Innovative Board (hereinafter referred to as the “Specialized Board”), which is specifically undertaken and operated by the Shanghai Equity Custody and Exchange Center (hereinafter referred to as the “Shanghai Equity Center”), has cumulatively served nearly 600 companies. Among them, companies at the national level classified as “little giants” in 专精特新 and companies at the municipal level in Shanghai account for nearly 60%. A capital ecosystem covering the full lifecycle of enterprises is accelerating into formation.

Helping companies “strengthen their internal capabilities”

As a regulated-tier enterprise on the Specialized Board, Li Ke, Chairman of Yunyi System Integration (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Yunyi”), told the Shanghai Securities News that entering the regulated tier of the Specialized Board has created a forcing mechanism—its financial internal controls and management procedures must be benchmarked against higher standards.

Li Ke said that entering the regulated tier of the Specialized Board is not only a move to connect with the capital market, but also that, through the Shanghai Equity Center’s platform endorsement and resource matchmaking, the company’s credibility has been significantly enhanced. Overall, the most core enablement for the company is the transition from a “business-oriented enterprise” to a “regulated governance enterprise,” laying an institutional foundation for the company’s long-term, steady growth.

This kind of “pain” from increased regulation has brought real improvements. Backed by its “Specialized, Refined, Unique, and Innovative” enterprise status, Yunyi has received fiscal support, and its bank credit line has also been raised to the tens of millions scale.

As introduced, over the past two years, the “Shanghai Specialized, Refined, Unique, and Innovative Enterprise Service Alliance” proposed and initiated by the Shanghai Equity Center has expanded to nearly 30 member organizations. Leveraging the “One Month, One Chain” investment and financing roadshow brand built on the Specialized Board, it has held 37 events in total, serving nearly 400 enterprises, and facilitating intended investment amounts exceeding 1.2 billion yuan. In terms of interconnection, the Specialized Board has established a deep cooperation mechanism with Shanghai and Shenzhen, and the three major exchanges in the North. Relying on the “green channel” for listing review, a group of benchmark enterprises has successfully landed on the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ).

Zhang Jun, General Manager of the Shanghai Equity Center, said that standing at a new starting point on the two-year anniversary, the Shanghai Equity Center will take “deepening regulated cultivation, deepening financial enablement, and deepening industrial coordination” as its levers, and will build the Specialized Board into an “injection station” for private equity financing for companies, an “accelerator” for innovative development, and a “cultivation port” for listing and trading on the secondary board.

The Shanghai Equity Center also unveiled a “white list” mechanism for partner institutions at the meeting. The “white list” mechanism is designed to establish unified access and service standards and build a closed-loop, full-process management system from needs diagnosis to implementation tracking. Through measures such as selecting external differentiated service products and publicizing information about partner institutions, it builds a transparent and reliable supplementary toolkit for enterprise services, providing the Shanghai Equity Center with more selectable tools and resource support during market expansion and enterprise service processes, and further improving the effectiveness of project matchmaking and the practicality of service delivery.

Warrant options unlock “credit first, then financing”

“Specialized Boards and warrant options businesses are mutually enabling. Many of the warrant options issued are by specialized, refined, unique, and innovative companies.” A relevant负责人 from the Shanghai Equity Center said. Warrant options refer to the right granted by a company or relevant party to an external institution, pursuant to an agreement, to subscribe for a certain number of shares or a certain amount of enterprise equity (or shares) at a future time period. As the issuer, the enterprise may, without diluting its equity at the moment, obtain funds or resources for financial services by transferring part of its future growth earnings, helping it overcome development hurdles.

Xinton Artificial Intelligence is one of the first batch of enterprises in the warrant options pilot. Yu Riqiong, Head of the Company’s Integrated Operations Department, explained that, as a start-up technology company, the funding issue had been the biggest pain point in the early stage of development. “The traditional equity financing cycle is longer and hard to keep up with the company’s pace of R&D and business, while pure credit-based loans are also difficult to meet funding needs. Through the Shanghai Equity Center’s platform, the company reached a warrant options cooperation with Nanjing Bank.” Yu Riqiong said.

As introduced, the two parties’ cooperation uses a combined model of “forward warrant options + debt financing.” First, Nanjing Bank obtains Xinton Artificial Intelligence’s warrant options (not yet formally exercised). Then it provides debt capital support to the enterprise in the form of cash loans. Yu Riqiong said that this model is akin to the bank providing “endorsement” for the enterprise, which helps better connect with social capital. Due to the deep cooperation, when the enterprise obtains debt financing, it may also receive some preferential terms regarding interest rates. At present, the warrant options have not yet been formally exercised, but the debt funds are already in place, effectively easing the enterprise’s funding pressure at the development stage. After exercise, the two parties will allocate equity at the agreed price, achieving maximum interest alignment.

In the view of industry insiders, the warrant options business effectively aligns with the interest demands of financial institutions, 科创 enterprises, venture capital institutions, and others, enabling win-win outcomes for multiple parties. Among them, commercial banks, as the main force and “catalyst” of the warrant options business, can fully leverage the advantages of linkage between equity and debt; they are an important implementation entity for investment-loan linkage and “loan + external direct investment.”

In terms of market building, as of the end of 2025, the Shanghai Equity Center’s warrant options pilot platform has cumulatively completed 86 warrant options registrations, with a total financing scale of more than 368 million yuan. Based on the steady growth in the number of participating entities and registered counts, the platform business has achieved a breakthrough in a closed-loop from registration to transfer and exercise. To date, it has completed 2 warrant options transfers and 1 warrant options exercise.