NEW YORK, May 28, 2026, 13:03 EDT
Mint Incorporation Limited’s U.S. shares slid roughly 6% by midday Thursday, giving back early gains after the Hong Kong-based company reported a HK$15 million joint venture with Rice Robotics to enter the AI companion robot market. The stock started the session at $4.41, climbed to $4.77, but then dropped to $3.31, with about 1.95 million shares traded.
Mint is making its case to investors as it leans harder into robotics, aiming to prove this is more than a last-ditch bid to stay listed. The company just dealt with a Nasdaq rule, clearing a minimum bid price of $1 that it had been struggling with.
Mint said its full subsidiary Aspiration X signed a JV agreement with Rice Robotics on May 22. The deal sets up Rice Robotics AGI Holding Limited in the British Virgin Islands to work on building and selling new AI companion robots. Artificial intelligence, or AI, is software that can handle things like talking or recognizing objects, usually done by humans.
Mint is putting in HK$15 million along with staff and R&D help under the deal. Rice Robotics will add its tech, IP, client list, know-how, and marketing, the company said.
Mint chairman and CEO Damian Chan said in the release the deal is an “acceleration of our companion robot strategy.” Rice Robotics founder Victor Lee said the project’s aim is to build “consumer-ready AI robots” for daily use.
A second statement said the new venture has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with subsidiaries of B.Duck Semk Holdings International Limited, the Hong Kong-listed company behind the B.Duck character. The idea is to build B.Duck NAVI, a companion robot that uses the brand’s intellectual property.
Mint is jumping into a busy robotics sector. Serve Robotics, a delivery robot operator trading on Nasdaq, gained roughly 5.7% around midday. Richtech Robotics, also in service robotics, barely moved. That hints investors aren’t chasing every small robotics ticker on the same story.
Governance is in the spotlight. Mint said in a filing on May 27 it will sell 211,879 Class B ordinary shares to Deep Vision Enterprise Limited, which is fully owned by Hoi Lung Chan. Chan is named as both chairman and CEO in the document. The deal is for HK$5 million. Each Class B share has 20 votes and can be turned into a Class A share, but the Class B shares are not exchange-listed.
Mint is back in compliance with Nasdaq’s $1 minimum bid requirement, according to a company filing. The stock closed at or above $1 for 10 sessions in a row from May 6 to May 19. Mint had done a 1-for-10 reverse stock split earlier in May, cutting the share count and boosting its share price.
Mint didn’t start out in the consumer robot business. According to its latest annual filing, Mint is a British Virgin Islands holding company, with an operating arm called Matter Interiors Limited that set up in Hong Kong in 2018 to do interior design and fit-out work. The company went public in the U.S. this January, selling Class A shares at $4 each and pulling in $8.05 million in gross proceeds before costs.
B.Duck’s deal is still non-binding and needs a final agreement, so the robot story is more talk than earnings for now. The company says its forward-looking statements carry risks and uncertainties. Shares ran from $4.77 down to $3.14 in the same session. For a stock this volatile, real execution has to come fast, or investors may see the AI pitch as just another trade, not a real shift in the business.
