Yunqi Capital Named to ChinaVenture's "Top 10 Best Early-Stage VC Firms in China" for Fifth Consecutive Year, Portfolio Companies Win Eight Honors | Yunqi Capital News

➤➤➤ On April 18, ChinaVenture announced its 2024 annual rankings, with Yunqi Capital and its portfolio companies receiving multiple honors:

➤ Firm Awards

• "Top 10 Best Early-Stage Venture Capital Firms in China" (five consecutive years)
• "China Venture Capital & Private Equity Decade Achievement Award"
• "Top 30 Best Investment Firms in China's AI and Big Data Industry" (multiple consecutive years)
• "Top 30 Best Investment Firms in China's Digitalization and IT Industry" (multiple consecutive years)
• "Top 30 Best Investment Firms in China's Carbon Neutrality Industry"
• "Nova Top 50 Emerging Investors" (Partner Yu Chen)

➤ Portfolio Company Awards

• MiniMax — "Top 10 Best Investment Cases in China's AI and Big Data Industry"
• Hohem — "Top 10 Best Investment Cases in China's New Consumer Industry"

Meanwhile, Founding Partner Chengyu Mao and Partner Yu Chen were invited to speak at the ChinaVenture annual summit, participating in discussions on "Diversified Exits" and "AI Investment" respectively.

During the panel "Peak Dialogue: Exploring Diversified Exit Channels to Resolve Private Equity Liquidity Challenges," Mao noted that PE exits currently face multiple challenges: the normalization of Hong Kong IPOs pricing below their offering range, price negotiations between late-stage investors and early shareholders, and minority put options triggering "avalanche effects." "These real-world issues ultimately transfer pressure to the startup side," he said, "which to some extent distracts founding teams from focusing on innovation."

"Similar to the secondary market, a lack of primary-market liquidity also distorts asset values." Mao believes that creating a relatively relaxed exit environment is necessary to restore market efficiency and allow the venture capital ecosystem to redirect more energy toward business innovation.

In recent years, Yunqi Capital has made progress across multiple exit channels including secondary transfers, public company M&A, S-funds, and IPOs. Multiple Yunqi portfolio companies have completed or are preparing for Hong Kong listings, including Zhaogang Group, Manycore Tech, JD.com, WorldEx, Zhijin Technology (Baibu), and DeepRoute.ai.

Embodied intelligence is among the hottest fundraising sectors in 2025 and an area where Yunqi has been making systematic bets for several years. During the "Deep Chat: Discussing the Future of AI Through a Lens of Progressive Values" session, Chen shared his views on the sector's investment value and philosophy. He believes that for tech investing, the focus shouldn't be on the present but rather on what transformations will emerge in five or ten years. As labor shortages become an increasingly foreseeable trend, the importance of positioning in embodied intelligence becomes more apparent.

"While it's hard to tell which of the dozens of companies out there will ultimately win, in theory there are so many job types in the human world that an embodied intelligence company could emerge for each one. Our approach is to invest in a few companies with differentiation in either application scenarios or technical approaches, then 'let the bullets fly for a while' — because this is a very long-term industry," Chen said.

Moving forward with quiet dedication — "ten" remains as "one." 2025 marks Yunqi Capital's 11th year. Carrying this industry recognition, we will continue to focus on the long term, make forward-looking bets, and walk alongside technology builders to open up a promising future for tech innovation.