Yunqi Capital x OpenAtom Foundation China Open Source Development Deep-Dive Report Officially Released

云启资本·July 23, 2025

What's Next for Open Source

➤➤ On July 23, the 2025 OpenAtom Open Source Ecosystem Conference, hosted by the OpenAtom Foundation, opened at the China National Convention Center. The China Open Source Development Deep Dive Report (2024), which Yunqi Capital contributed to, was officially released at the event. As the only early-stage investment institution among the report's contributing organizations, Yunqi Capital authored the chapter on open source commercialization trends.

The China Open Source Development Deep Dive Report was compiled through collaboration across industry, academia, research, application, and investment, offering in-depth analysis of multi-dimensional open source ecosystem trends and challenges — covering open source projects, licenses, code hosting platforms, key industry applications, and open source security. It aims to provide systematic reference for high-quality open source ecosystem development. Contributing organizations include the China Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Huawei, and nearly twenty other institutions.

△ Yunqi Capital at the report launch ceremony

Yunqi Capital's chapter, Open Source Commercialization Trends, focuses on the evolution of open source business models and investment environment dynamics. It systematically analyzes the advantages, challenges, and applicable scenarios of different commercial models — from the 1.0 support-services phase, to the 2.0 open-core phase, and on to the 3.0 cloud-hosted phase.

The report categorizes the structural characteristics of eight mainstream open source software business models, and examines product pathways, community strategies, and revenue models through representative case studies from both Chinese and international companies such as Databricks and PingCAP. Grounded in the domestic context, it identifies four major challenges currently facing open source commercialization, and proposes systematic recommendations for open source project commercialization — including paths toward global market expansion, building technical moats, and focusing on lighthouse customer marketing.

As one of the earliest VC firms in China to focus on and consistently cultivate open source, Yunqi Capital has remained actively involved in building the open source ecosystem, previously contributing to annual open source reports released by China's largest open source community for three consecutive years. Since 2015, it has continuously deployed capital in open source-related technology and infrastructure, investing in a portfolio of globally competitive open source projects including PingCAP, Zilliz, RisingWave, and TabbyML. Additionally, portfolio companies active on the AI frontier such as MiniMax and Manycore Tech have also open-sourced their main products.

The OpenAtom Foundation, which led the report's compilation, is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing global open source development. Under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and with support from all sectors of society, it operates and incubates a number of internationally influential open source projects.

We believe that open source is not merely a paradigm shift in software engineering, but a critical foundation for technology diffusion and innovation efficiency in the AI era. Going forward, we will continue to support open source entrepreneurs with technical originality, global community operations capabilities, and sustainable business models — driving open source to become an important force in technological innovation and industrial evolution.

Bonus at the end

On AI + open source / open source commercialization,

what new trends do you see emerging?