How an Under-the-Radar FA Closed Billion-Yuan Deals | Getting In

By | Muxin Xu

Edited by | Zhiyan Chen

Whether meeting entrepreneurs or investors, nearly every project manager at WanChuang Capital will first explain the "nickname" on their business card — the one that differs from the standard English names used elsewhere in the industry.

To downplay hierarchy, promote fairness, and inject more fun into work, China's big tech companies have devised various nickname systems. WanChuang draws its nicknames from The Great Learning, one of the Four Books and Five Classics of Confucianism. By year of joining, the first character follows the sequence: "Zhi, Ding, Jing, An, Lü, De." Partners take their names from "Ming ming de, Zai qin min, Zai zhi yu zhi shan." The character "Ming" belongs to WanChuang founder Chuanhu Geng, whose nickname is "Ming Tian" (Tomorrow).

For WanChuang — born in 2016 amid the "mass entrepreneurship, mass innovation" campaign — it wasn't until 2022 that this financial advisory firm truly saw its own tomorrow.

Anyong Waves once tallied the 40 largest financing deals in China's primary market in mid-2022. Ninety percent of these projects had nothing to do with the internet. Super deals appeared almost exclusively in advanced manufacturing: solar cell maker Runergy, raising over 3 billion yuan; lithium anode material producer KunTian New Energy, nearly 2.5 billion; 12-inch silicon wafer maker XinXin Semiconductor, over 3 billion; lithium battery recycling provider Gotion New Materials, nearly 1 billion; carbon fiber composite firm AT&F, over 500 million; photoresist company Fuyang Xinyeehua, over 500 million; hydrogen storage and transport equipment maker CryoTech, over 300 million. They shared one trait — WanChuang Capital served as their FA.

Though WanChuang had already facilitated considerable financing volume throughout 2022, this low-profile financial advisor, quietly operating in every corner of the primary market, remained unfamiliar in public discourse. Even within venture capital circles, many people's impression of WanChuang stopped at "I've heard the name."

But investors and entrepreneurs who have worked with WanChuang staff come away with an impression entirely unlike that of conventional FAs. Rather than the drawn-out approach of café meetings, WanChuang excels at compressing pitch deck content into 10-minute phone calls to boost efficiency. When an advanced manufacturing firm signals any financing intent, regardless of distance, WanChuang's project managers will visit in person. Some managers have even lived in guesthouses next to companies for an entire year, ready to receive interested investors at any moment. Their approach, in a word: "wild."

In an equity investment market gripped by persistent gloom, a wild,热血 FA is undeniably invigorating — especially for top-tier firms whose keyword in recent years has been "transformation." Three months ago, a well-known FA announced its "second startup," with reform focused on: getting closer to industry, closer to government, and building a team that is "more hungry, more grounded, more fundamentally powerful."

These very words could describe WanChuang Capital.

How to Best Understand Manufacturing?

WanChuang is now in its eighth year, yet founder Chuanhu Geng has never appeared in public or given a single media interview. Unlike most FAs where the founder's dominant role is immediately apparent, he carries an almost incongruous detachment and reclusiveness.

Yet examine WanChuang from any angle, and you'll sense a raw, fierce energy within the team. Project managers who are rarely at their desks nonetheless display towering trophies. Most members are from northern China, with engineering backgrounds, experience in manufacturing or entrepreneurship, including former listed company executives and those who left government posts to join.

Take Zhiqiang Duan. Before joining WanChuang, he worked in Beijing for over 15 years, shepherding two manufacturing firms through IPO. After five years of observing the WanChuang team, he moved his entire family to Suzhou to join them, then founded and led the WanChuang Research Institute as its president.

In 2023, WanChuang employees logged over 1,800 business travel days — averaging at least five staff members heading to every corner of China daily. Transportation might be planes, high-speed rail, taxis, or various forms of motorized tricycles and "old-man carts."

"What the team shares is being grounded, idealistic, and unwilling to lose," said partner WanChuang Sumin Liang.

Perhaps this is precisely the FA team suited to China's current manufacturing landscape.

Among WanChuang's entrepreneur clients: Daqiang Long of Runergy, Sen Li of Gotion New Materials, Zhitao Song of KunTian New Energy, Jingcheng Zhu of MaiTian New Energy, and Jianbin Wu of Taihu Energy Valley. Their shared traits: unpretentious, pragmatic, persistently focused on their vertical domains, unfamiliar with capital markets yet hotly pursued by capital.

The story of KunTian New Energy's financing reveals how WanChuang understands manufacturing.

Founded in 2000, KunTian is a lithium battery anode material producer and China's first artificial graphite processing enterprise for anode materials. After more than two decades of quiet, unassuming development, it had become a "little giant" in the industry. In fact, it was one of only two Pre-IPO financing events in the new energy track in Q1 2023 — scale and cost advantages being the greatest moats of a mature enterprise.

KunTian's previous two funding rounds involved mostly local government and existing shareholder introductions, making it a classic underwater, hidden project. When it first considered bringing in market-oriented funds in late 2021, word spread quickly, and countless institutions and FAs came calling. To achieve the best outcome, KunTian initially selected nine FAs as its financing service providers.

While other FAs immediately began contacting investors, WanChuang's first move was to embed its research institute team at KunTian for a month. During that month, analysts examined everything from macro industry and sector trends to competitors and market structure, then corporate history, financials, core product advantages, and corporate culture — forming a comprehensive, multi-dimensional analysis. The output: a nearly 300-page industry research report and an almost 80-page valuation model analysis.

"Existing generic valuation models don't necessarily suit all our domestic enterprises. We need to build valuation models with Chinese characteristics," said Zhiqiang Duan.

After analyzing internal data and investment logic, WanChuang didn't immediately begin financing services. Instead, it advised KunTian to expand its originally planned 500 million yuan fundraising target.

Three reasons: First, the industry had formed a "three big, four small" market structure. Comparing all competitors' expansion plans, KunTian's standout features were high gross margins and strong technology, indicating long-term investment value. Second, market conditions were shifting; capital market winds were unpredictable. Though anode materials were hot that year, there was no guarantee this would continue. More capital was needed to stockpile for winter, preparing to survive industry cycles or economic downturns. Third, given the different ecosystem resources of industrial investors versus the advantages of financial investors, the round could be split into industrial and financial capital tranches, giving different investor types more opportunities.

Ultimately, with unanimous push from KunTian's leadership and over eight months of work, the company completed two rounds totaling 2.5 billion yuan in early 2023. Industrial investors included Sinopec Capital, SK China, and Sany Group; financial investors included CICC Capital, Xiamen C&D, and Langmafeng Venture Capital. WanChuang facilitated over 90% of the transaction volume.

Yet being a manufacturing FA remains more difficult. This is evident from how many FAs KunTian initially chose.

"Manufacturing entrepreneurs have it very tough. From R&D, production, market validation, to mass manufacturing, they endure countless hardships. Precisely because every step is more difficult, their choices are more cautious," said partner Xianliang Hong of WanChuang.

When a dozen FAs present themselves to manufacturing entrepreneurs, what truly distinguishes them is understanding of the industry. Chuanhu Geng offered Anyong Waves a half-joking analogy: FA work is like being a matchmaker, not an online dating algorithm. An algorithm just solves cold information asymmetry and matching, with no deep emotional stake or responsibility for either party. A matchmaker operates on reputation, finding truly suitable pairings.

"Without cheating either side, doing what's reasonable and fair — you can earn respect locally, accumulate good karma."

He believes advanced manufacturing encompasses numerous tracks. Within each niche, building reputation and earning respect isn't easy. It requires immersion in the industry, in companies, truly understanding enterprises to become a deep strategic partner. One must know the leaders and laggards across sub-sectors, becoming sufficiently professional to earn enterprises' respect for the "financial advisor" role.

For instance, Min Huang, financing lead at Gotion New Materials, had a specific logic for selecting FAs: no simultaneous multi-FA cooperation. Instead, each FA was given a trial period, with the most professional one or two retained. "Professional, responsible, understands manufacturing" was their primary reason for choosing WanChuang as lead FA.

In 2023, amid a surreal market backdrop, WanChuang still successfully completed financings for quality enterprises including Taihu Energy Valley, Tengdun Technology, MaiTian New Energy, Zhongrun Chemical, Genyuan New Materials, Xinlanhai, Luxin New Materials, Solird, Topu Technology, YiWen Semiconductor, Jiedebao, Yiguang Technology, and others.

The 2% Left in the Address Book

Though most of WanChuang's dozens of 2023 deals fell in the industrial category, like most FAs, its origins lay in relationships and connections.

A serial entrepreneur with financial industry and state-owned enterprise background, Chuanhu Geng had done strategic and financing consulting for Suzhou's earliest industrial parks before founding WanChuang. Around 2014, as the New Third Board heated up, more companies sought fundraising or IPO preparation. Through various favors and matchmaking, he had unwittingly begun FA work. Later, policy encouraged "mass entrepreneurship and innovation," and WanChuang was born.

WanChuang's earliest projects came mainly from Beijing, spanning film, education, agriculture, technology, internet, and other sectors. As an industry that flourished alongside PE/VC, early FA work required no fundraising and had low barriers, leading to uneven practitioner quality. Though boutique banks like Taihe and China Renaissance had joined the top FA ranks, the hottest years for equity investment still saw many middlemen mixed in. With the launch of the STAR Market, ChiNext registration reform, and other policy adjustments, mainstream investment banks began moving upstream, squeezing the living space of FA natives to some degree.

"Relationships aren't what matter most; professionalism is." This was Chuanhu Geng's realization.

Thus a transformation began in 2018 — focusing on new energy, concentrating on sci-tech innovation. But this decision nearly killed WanChuang. August to December 2018 became its darkest hour, and for years after, Geng would often share this painful period with partners.

In 2018, China's auto sales declined for the first time. New energy vehicle subsidies shrank. Downstream, even NIO nearly didn't survive that harsh winter. The cost of greater focus was extreme insecurity. Previously serving all industries, WanChuang had tens of thousands of clients, over 30,000 institutional investors on the capital side, and more than 60,000 contacts. After focusing on industry, enterprise numbers plummeted; corresponding service institutions dropped to 1,300. Vertical service to one industry proved harder than imagined. With revenue pressure unabated, growing voices questioned the decision.

Chuanhu Geng felt that unlike the idea of doing just one thing, one business, WanChuang's founding aspiration was to build a platform — "a stage where a group of people can freely perform and spontaneously shine." "It's because of this original intention that so many people who had nearly reached the top of their respective fields were attracted to join. So every decision concerned not one person, but a group."

Every week of H2 2018 felt like years. Everyone pondered: what was WanChuang's next direction? During casual conversation, a friend mentioned: the core of minimalism is focus and restraint. This sentence solidified Geng's choice.

2018 marked WanChuang's true beginning as an industry-focused capital firm, committed to becoming an industry investment bank, with establishment of a professional industry research team. Partner Yang Liu alone logged 178 travel days, conducting carpet-bombing industry surveys to form preliminary sector mapping. In his view, immersive deep engagement in industry enables timely, rapid detection of market changes and clients' true needs.

"That year, I felt I was either traveling or in meetings. The partner team probably held the most discussion meetings — 2 or 3 a.m. was normal. That's when we confirmed our values, the nickname culture. It was WanChuang's true beginning," said partner Yang Liu.

In 2019, through deep industry service, WanChuang was first to discover the low-profile "industrial capital cluster" hidden in capital markets — OEMs, CVCs, downstream application enterprises. During industrial capital's self-funded period, WanChuang had already begun cooperating with these now-red-hot industrial capital players.

Simultaneously, WanChuang established its industry research institute and data operations center, more deeply focusing on industry sub-tracks. Project managers, analysts, and investment managers cumulatively studied over 36,000 enterprises. This is why in WanChuang-led projects, recommended institution success rates can exceed 70%.

In interviews about WanChuang, the most frequently mentioned word is efficiency. WanChuang's phone-based communication approach was once considered intrusive or somewhat low-class by some investors. Facing occasional complaints, WanChuang persisted with this "most efficient" method. Internally, they believe that while phone calls may lack gentleness, they avoid information loss or misrepresentation for the sake of "pitch deck open rates." Thus WanChuang has an unwritten "cardinal rule": no mass pitch deck distribution. "Because mass distribution means playing the odds." They believe phone communication after trust-building saves the most time, as each "single project" in every call has been filtered from over 15,000 projects internally throughout the year.

Among all served enterprises, Gotion New Materials most exemplifies the WanChuang style.

In late 2021, Gotion chairman Sen Li received a call from WanChuang. This lithium battery recycling solutions provider, focused on retired battery comprehensive recycling, was in a hot sector — 2021 power battery installations reached 154.5 GWh, up 142.9% year-over-year. Companies across the chain were highly sought-after. Gotion had completed two prior rounds with mostly local government or existing shareholder introductions, remaining an underwater hidden player. An industrial institution discovered Gotion during research and immediately asked WanChuang about it — WanChuang sensed opportunity.

In 2022, WanChuang helped Gotion New Materials complete consecutive B+ and C rounds totaling nearly 1 billion yuan. Shareholders included Fosun Ruizheng, GAC Capital, Shaanxi Auto Group, Bosch Ventures, Boyuan Capital, and other domestic industrial capitals, plus institutions like Fortune Venture Capital and Cornerstone Capital. Gotion financing lead Min Huang told Anyong Waves that Gotion used four FAs; WanChuang was the one that best understood manufacturing, while also connecting the most institutions and achieving the highest success rate.

In Huang's view, interested investors fell into two types. One followed current market heat but lacked fundamental judgment on the lithium battery industry — these had very low subsequent deal success. The other had watched for a long time; though they rarely invested, finding an underwater project like Gotion meant they believed timing was ripe, so success probability was higher. Based on industry understanding, WanChuang's recommendations were almost entirely state-backed capital and top RMB funds, with the round closing in three months. Notably, Bosch Ventures and Boyuan Capital both traced back to German Bosch.

The reason for introducing industrial capital, per WanChuang Research Institute's advice: first, the first wave of large-scale battery retirement hadn't yet arrived — good timing for investment. Second, in discussions with European colleagues, they found policy restrictions meant Bosch and others could only pay third-party environmental companies for battery disposal; investing in Gotion could bring strategic returns. Third, for the enterprise itself, this might later secure better lithium battery recycling channels in the European market.

Seizing a "Multi-Win" New Opportunity

In August 2023, WanChuang moved its office to the center of Suzhou's CBD — a new, 2,500-square-meter workspace. Partner Yunjing Yang told Anyong Waves that in this not-yet-thawed winter, this move aimed to signal internally: though investment markets remain depressed, WanChuang still has the courage to pull the trigger.

In WanChuang's annual deal volume, over 40% of projects relate to government investment attraction. In 2022, WanChuang established an Investment Banking Investment Attraction Department, mainly serving government landing and related matters.

More and more primary market practitioners choose to serve government; FAs are no exception. But making this proportion so large, even establishing a dedicated department, is rare. Another example might be Lighthouse Capital, whose founder Wule Zheng established IDA — an empowerment team specifically built for enterprises' increasing government engagement, helping bring in government resources including land, capital, and policy.

This still answers a simple question: in years of persistently depressed primary market investment data, who has greater capital deployment capacity? By incomplete statistics, since 2023, newly established 100-billion-yuan-scale guidance funds have totaled over 1 trillion yuan (including planned management scale). With frequent appearances of 100-billion-yuan-level fund of funds clusters, regions increasingly emphasize coordination between investment and investment attraction.

The core challenge for FAs doing investment attraction: while helping enterprises secure government funding, matching this with government's performance demands — finding overlap between the two. Taking the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta as examples: for a given industry, the Pearl River Delta's industrial radius is 150 kilometers, while the Yangtze River Delta's might be 300 — this is the concept of industrial clusters. Thus a company would rather expand in the Pearl River Delta than relocate to the Yangtze River Delta, where rebuilding the supply chain would affect turnover, public costs, and ultimately production efficiency. This is the enterprise-side problem to solve.

On the government side, every region has landing and reinvestment targets, with demands including local industrial chain completeness, employment, and more quantifiable GDP. Meeting these while also generating financial returns — such projects are extremely scarce.

Chuanhu Geng told Anyong Waves: "In 2018, the state called for returning to manufacturing, valuing manufacturing. Advanced manufacturing is fundamental to national development, capable of bringing industrial clusters and solving employment. Under this call, WanChuang chose to focus on manufacturing, deeply serving both industrial and investment sides. In doing FA well, we did much referral and assistance, already helping enterprises with landing and industrial resource empowerment — unwittingly beginning investment attraction-related work. Establishing investment banking investment attraction now is natural and logical.

Our view of investment banking investment attraction is: examining projects with investment banking standards and requirements, viewing industry development trends with professional investor eyes, assessing competitive advantages and technological advancement, while combining the advantages and characteristics of industrial clusters nationwide — more professionally, broadly, and comprehensively serving industrial institutions and government, achieving win-win or multi-win outcomes."

Truly achieving mutual benefit among local government, investors, and enterprises is of course fraught with difficulties. But regardless, WanChuang, having survived rough-hewn times, is no stranger to difficult things.

At interview's end, Chuanhu Geng mentioned the nickname culture. The choice to cite The Great Learning came from appreciation of its core idea — "investigating things to extend knowledge" (ge wu zhi zhi). "Continuously do the right thing, maintain humility, stay grounded."

Ancient teachings may be more suited to the present. After the era of easy gold, one must bury one's head lower.

Image Source | IC Photo

Layout | Muxin Xu