Yunqi Capital Spring-Summer Issue | In the Bright Season, Innovation Grows with Wanwu Capital

The sun is ever new, and so is technology.

The 173 sunrises of 2024 have witnessed new leaps in artificial intelligence, as well as our explorations and reflections alongside portfolio companies amid the technological tide. This issue of the Yunqi Capital Spring-Summer Quarterly takes you through the growth milestones we and our portfolio companies have left behind this season.

Chengyu Mao, Founding Partner, Yunqi Capital

The industry today is more complex and volatile than ever before, undergoing a transformation from discovering value to creating value. This holds greater challenges, but also fosters a process where all parties in the industry pull together in the same boat. Embrace AI, iterate industries, steady the helm and set sail anew — together toward the future.

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Quarterly at a Glance

#1 Funding Updates

• 6 portfolio companies completed follow-on rounds

#2 Growth Stories

• Embracing AI: AI computing power, large models, and application launches / Embodied intelligence advances further

• Going Global: Portfolio companies expanding to North America, Europe, Saudi Arabia, and beyond

• New Connections: Key partnerships / important commercialization milestones

#3 Ecosystem Building

• Diverse ecosystem: Building together with LPs, local enterprises, top universities, founders, and tech industry practitioners

• Yunqi Insights: In-depth report on the open-source ecosystem / observations on AI hot topics

#4 Yunqi Honors

• Ranked among top 10 early-stage investment institutions for the year, selected for AI vertical category list

• Multiple early-stage portfolio companies named to important industry lists

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#1 Funding Updates

6 Yunqi Capital portfolio companies announced follow-on funding

Guangbenwei closes nearly RMB 100 million Angel+ round

#AIComputing #PhotonicChips

Guangbenwei is dedicated to developing photonic computing chips (OPU) and has completed three tape-outs to date. The founding team brings solid academic background and practical experience in photonic computing chips. Learn more

Shenci Technology closes new nearly RMB 100 million round

#NewMaterials #HighTemperatureSuperconductivity

Shenci Technology is committed to advancing high-temperature superconducting materials and providing superior products and services to global customers. The company collaborates with Shanghai Jiao Tong University technical teams to tackle key raw materials and core equipment localization. Learn more

Xingji closes hundreds of millions of RMB Series B

#DigitalChips #DigitalEDA

Xingji is building a secure, reliable, efficient, and intelligent digital implementation EDA platform — one of the bridges between digital chip design and manufacturing — currently safeguarding numerous partners in integrated circuit fields including artificial intelligence, smart vehicles, 5G, and cloud computing. Learn more

Weidu Technology closes two rounds at hundred-million-RMB scale

#NewEnergyHeavyTrucks

Weidu Technology is a pure ground-up developer of new energy intelligent heavy-duty truck solutions, with entirely new designs across its three-electric systems, electronic/electrical architecture, wire-controlled planning, powertrain, vehicle exterior, and intelligent cockpit. Learn more

Neolix closes RMB 600 million Series C

#AutonomousDriving #AutonomousDeliveryVehicles

Neolix is a startup focused on L4 autonomous driving for unmanned delivery. Its autonomous vehicles have obtained public road operating licenses covering over 100,000 square kilometers across more than 30 provinces and cities in China, and have completed technical and commercial efficiency validation with multiple leading logistics and courier companies. Learn more

Renshuo Solar Energy closes hundreds of millions of RMB Series A

#NewEnergy #Perovskite

Renshuo Solar Energy focuses on R&D and production of novel perovskite solar cells, aiming to become a global leader in the solar industry. The company's technical team has repeatedly set new world records for perovskite solar cell conversion efficiency. Learn more

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#2 Growth Stories

Embracing AI, going global, key partnerships, commercial deployment... portfolio companies seeing progress on multiple fronts

Embracing AI

MiniMax: MoE trillion-parameter large model launched, productivity application released

MiniMax fully released its large language model Abab6, the first MoE (Mixture-of-Experts) trillion-parameter large language model in China. Learn more

It subsequently launched Hailuo AI, a productivity application built on its self-developed multimodal large model, supporting multimodal interaction across text, voice, and image. Learn more

Astribot: Successfully develops AI robot Astribot S1

The Astribot S1 delivers "strongest manipulation performance" among robots of its class, has already been connected to large model testing, and is expected to achieve commercialization within 2024. Learn more

Yunqi Capital: End-to-end autonomous driving mass-production vehicles on sale this year

According to media outlet LatePost, Yunqi Capital has secured at least four mass-production vehicle models. It has also partnered with NVIDIA, and its end-to-end model will be among the first to adapt to NVIDIA's next-generation autonomous driving chip Thor, set for mass production next year. Learn more

Coohom: AI-powered 2024 solution upgrade across all spaces

This includes simultaneous upgrades to multiple AI-assisted capabilities such as AI Design Assistant, Meijian AI Mood Proposals, and CAD Recognition. Manycore Tech has built the world's first generative AI engine for 3D spatial domains and integrated a multimodal AI Agent. Learn more

Zilliz: Partners with NVIDIA to release first GPU-accelerated vector database, earns Amazon Web Services Generative AI Competency

Zilliz's Milvus 2.4, co-released with NVIDIA and powered by NVIDIA CUDA, delivers 50x performance gains. Learn more

Zilliz, alongside NVIDIA and Anthropic, was among the first to earn the Amazon Web Services Generative AI Partner Competency, marking a significant step forward in driving AI technology innovation and application. Learn more

Realman Intelligent: Humanoid robotic arms enter the "thousand-yuan era"

Among its two newly released robotic arms, the GEN72 and ECO62, the former's thousand-yuan price point significantly improves durability and cost-effectiveness. Learn more

Bailian Intelligence: China's first SDR Bot debuts, vertical large model family expands

As a marketing digital employee product, SDR Bot is the first to integrate large model technology into B2B sales lead development, helping enterprises automate prospect outreach, follow-up, and conversion. Learn more

Jina AI: Releases Chinese-English and English-German bilingual 8K vector models

8K input is one of the technical highlights of both models, making them better suited for long-text processing and enabling multi-granularity vector representations from entities and sentences to paragraphs and entire documents. Learn more

Plusinno: Targets AI chips with launch of Loong series TCB advanced packaging equipment

Addressing the needs of AI chips, HBM, and other products, Plusinno has completed its Loong series TC Bonder technology platform, launching the Loong WS and Loong F product lines. Learn more

#Going Global

COOHOM (Coohom's international version) becomes Amazon SPN service provider

With its strong overall capabilities in 3D cloud design, COOHOM will provide product visualization services to Amazon sellers worldwide, optimizing product upload experiences and listing processes to efficiently drive conversions. Learn more

Worldwide Logistics: Strengthens US presence with launch of SAV warehouse

Located in Georgia, just 3.4 miles from Savannah Port (SAV) — a major logistics hub in the US Southeast — the new warehouse marks a significant enhancement of the company's logistics solutions capabilities in the southern US market. Learn more

Windrose pure electric heavy-duty truck completes 10,000-kilometer European road test, accelerating overseas expansion

Windrose Technology successfully completed a 3,100-kilometer cross-Europe road test, setting a record for single-trip distance by a new energy heavy-duty truck. The company has partnered with logistics customers in Belgium, the Netherlands, and other European locations to complete cumulative road tests of nearly 10,000 kilometers. Learn more

Shurui Data: Invited to LEAP exhibition in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, achieves series of breakthroughs in Middle East market

In March 2024, Shurui Data was invited to LEAP in Riyadh, one of the world's largest technology exhibitions, where it reached strategic partnerships with multiple international service providers and consulting firms during the event. [Learn more]

#New Connections

Zhijin Technology: Signs strategic partnerships with Yuexiu Capital, Guangzhou Industrial Investment, and Guangzhou Financial Holdings

This strategic partnership marks a concrete step in implementing the directives of the CPC Central Committee and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) on strengthening cooperation between state-owned and private enterprises. Guided by the principle of "win-win cooperation," it leverages the strengths of state capital platforms in product development, finance, ecosystem building, and services, while combining them with Zhijin Technology's end-to-end digital intelligence capabilities across the textile industry. Learn more

Neolix: New road permits across multiple cities accelerate scaled deployment

Neolix has newly obtained road permits in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Hefei, Wuxi, Suzhou, and other cities, continuing to ramp up scaled operations. To date, Neolix has secured formal road permits in over 70 cities nationwide. Learn more

#3 Ecosystem Co-Creation

Diverse Ecosystem

Connecting and exchanging with industry professionals from top universities, leading tech giants, and star startups — building a diverse ecosystem while continuously sharpening our thinking.

"Attent!on" Shanghai · Yunqi Capital AGI+ Salon Series We engaged in deep discussions on hot AI topics including Sora, long-context models, and Agents with nearly 50 frontline Big Tech technical and product experts, top algorithm scientists, and founders of star startups. Learn more

"Attent!on" Silicon Valley · Yunqi Capital AGI+ Salon Series On the occasion of the San Francisco GenAI Summit, the Yunqi Capital investment team gathered with partners active in the Silicon Valley venture capital circle at Stanford University to exchange views on the latest developments in AGI.

"AI-Powered Manufacturing, Charting a Steady Course" Yunqi Gathering · Changzhou

We brought together several early-stage portfolio companies with relevant Changzhou government departments, local investment institutions, and local industry players for in-depth exchanges and industry-finance matchmaking around AI, digitalization, new quality productive forces, and going global. Learn more

Yunqi Capital × ChinaVenture Annual Summit

Yunqi Capital founding partner Mao Chengyu attended ChinaVenture's "18th China Investment Annual Conference," sharing insights on topics including "patient capital" during a thematic forum.

Yunqi Perspectives

Amid the relentless surge of technological waves, we continue to closely track industry shifts, confront unanswered questions, and attempt to find answers.

1. Digging into open source for three consecutive years

At the start of the year, our ongoing collaboration with China's most influential open source community, "Kaiyuanshe," produced the "Commercialization" chapter of the China Open Source Annual Report. The report offers insights into core questions such as how the open source ecosystem can mutually reinforce and rapidly evolve with AI, and global open source project financing trends. Learn more

2. First take on Sora

In the early hours of February 16, OpenAI dropped Sora, its text-to-video model, sending massive ripples through the industry. Immediately upon Sora's release, the Yunqi Capital team held spirited discussions. Where does Sora's "magic" come from? What new impacts will it have on the AI landscape? We approached it from four angles. Learn more

3. First hands-on with Vision Pro

In February, we tested Vision Pro, then the most buzzed-about tech product, using real-world experience to gauge the distance between AI and the physical world. Learn more

4. First look at GPT-4o

Blazing speed at low cost, real-time emotionally expressive voice interaction, and real-time video interaction were the three most eye-catching highlights of GPT-4o. These capabilities were enabled by GPT-4o's algorithmic unification at the model level — steps like ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) and TTS (Text-to-Speech) were merged into one. Learn more

5. First take on the LLM price war

In an interview with LatePost, Yunqi Capital partner Chen Yu drew comparisons to past ride-hailing and O2O wars, where startups' logic for aggressive price wars was to burn competitors into the ground and ultimately achieve monopoly. But LLMs don't require heavy ground-game street-by-street promotion — it's easy for large companies to jump in. Learn more

6. First post-mortem on "AI's most intense month"

May was arguably "the most intense month" in AI since ChatGPT's launch. In our Yunqi Attent!on Tech Journal, we systematically mapped the major moves by tech giants and startups at home and abroad, and shared the trends we observed. Learn more

Yunqi Capital Awards

#4 Yunqi Capital Honors

Portfolio Company Awards (Selected)

10 Yunqi portfolio companies named to Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2024

MiniMax, PingCAP, Zhijing Technology (Baibu), Coohom, Yunqi Capital, XTransfer, Keenon Robotics, World Logistics, JD.com, Zhaogang.com

3 Yunqi portfolio founders named to 36Kr Under 36 List 2024

Junjie Yan, Founder and CEO of MiniMax

Yi Xu, Co-founder and CEO of Sobot

Tongyi Cao, CTO of Yunqi Capital

IceKredit, Keenon Robotics

Named to Forbes China AI Tech Enterprises TOP 50 2024

Yanchen Wu, Founder of Visual Dynamics

Named to Forbes Asia 30 Under 30

Yunqi Capital Awards (Selected)

ChinaVenture

Multiple consecutive rankings: Top 10 Early-Stage VC Firms in China

Top 20 Best AI and Big Data Investors in China

Top 30 Best Digitalization and Informatization Investors in China

Qimingpian

Top 20 Best Early-Stage Firms

Top 30 Best AI Investors

Top 30 Most Active Early-Stage Firms

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Summer approaches, yet the pace of thinking and doing continues. We look forward to harvesting more fruit.