Allen Zhu went left, Zhang Yutong went right

By Lili Yu and Zhiyan Chen

Edited by Jing Liu

As GSR Ventures managing partner Allen Zhu was telling people to "stay in the game, lay low" amid the bleak primary market, fellow managing partner Yutong Zhang was confirmed to have left. GSR Ventures told An Yong Waves: "We will make proper arrangements for everything else." Regarding her next move, a widely circulated theory holds that Zhang — who served as the most important behind-the-scenes driver of Moonshot AI's Alibaba financing round — has physically joined the company. But Moonshot AI denied this to An Yong Waves today, stating that "Zhang has not joined Moonshot AI" and that she is merely "helping out." Zhang herself told An Yong Waves: "I will indeed have more time to explore new opportunities in AI going forward, but right now I'm still in a 'transition period,' still serving as an advisor and providing post-investment support at the fund."

Investors leaving firms to join startups is hardly unusual. In fact, Zhang has done it before. Back in 2012, just a year after joining GSR Ventures, she left for a period to join FunPlus as head of operations. There, she oversaw product sourcing, marketing, and operations management for Asia, including Greater China, Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea — and grew new business to 100 million RMB in her first year. Later, one of its subsidiaries was sold to Century Huatong for 6.9 billion RMB. The two-year stint gave Zhang a "deep understanding of what entrepreneurship really means."

What makes Zhang's departure from GSR so murky is that she is no ordinary investor — she is a general partner (GP). A GP is both fund manager and fundraiser. As one industry insider told us, as a key person written into fund agreements, they hold irreplaceable status: "A managing partner's departure affects LPs' judgment of a fund's future performance, and can even determine whether the fund dissolves."

Perhaps for this reason, even though Zhang had been involved in Moonshot AI's financing since 2023 and helped the company close a funding round exceeding $1 billion in mid-February 2024, she told An Yong Waves in late March that she was still at GSR: "Zhilin Yang of Moonshot AI is my junior schoolmate; I'm just helping out for now." But clearly, things have since progressed. One investor told us that Zhang did not appear at GSR's annual meeting in Beijing yesterday. The source believes that this gathering of the fund's core figures may have accelerated resolution of a question that had long attracted outside attention.

Sources familiar with the matter tell us that Zhang's relationship with Moonshot AI is far more complex than imagined. The ties run deep: even before Moonshot AI, Zhang invested as a GSR Ventures investor in the angel round of Yang's previous startup, Recurrent AI. Recurrent AI later attracted investments from WestSummit Capital, Panda Capital, and Wamcap Capital, among others. As the earliest investor, she built a close relationship with Yang. One source revealed that her assistance to Moonshot AI extends beyond fundraising — "she's more like a strategic advisor." One industry figure told An Yong Waves that in Moonshot AI's equity structure, besides founder Zhilin Yang, co-founders Xinyu Zhou and Yuxin Wu, and co-founder Yutao Zhang, there is another rarely mentioned name likely connected to Yang.

Investors joining startups is common enough; what Zhang faces is a more complex web of interests involving Recurrent AI, Moonshot AI, GSR Ventures, and numerous other investors. After all, Moonshot AI — currently the hottest company, hailed as China's closest equivalent to OpenAI — represents an irresistible draw for most. If a smooth handover is completed, her departure becomes an inevitable next step.

Everything has its price. As an investor in Xiaohongshu, her exit means that massive, readily available gains from the still-unexited investment may be left hanging. But she may be pursuing something larger. Years ago, Zhang explained to us the meaning she found in being an investor: "Let others be the stars; I will be the night." Now, she is trying to become a star herself.

In any case, at a time when most investors are lost in confusion and beginning to consider downward moves, Zhang stands virtually alone in making an upward choice. A core business lead at one large model startup told us that many investors privately approach them saying they want to be "the next Yutong Zhang." In a sense, her departure also illuminates the divergence and parting of ways between Zhu and herself: Zhu chose to abandon investments in large model startups, while she chose to move closer. When Zhu called for staying at the table, she chose to switch tables.

Yet Zhang and Zhu are ultimately the same kind of person: when most people begin to blur themselves, they both dare to be themselves.

Image source: IC photo