5Y News | Vastai Technologies Completes Two Consecutive Rounds of Series B-1 and B-2 Funding, Raising 1.6 Billion RMB
5Y Capital has been closely following the development of China's AI sector.
Vastai Technologies, a high-end chip design unicorn, announced the completion of two consecutive funding rounds — Series B-1 and B-2 — totaling 1.6 billion RMB. The rounds were jointly led by Alibaba, PICC Capital, Matrix Partners China, and 5Y Capital. Following investors include China Life Science and Technology Innovation Fund, Mirae Asset, Cornerstone Capital, MUHUA Sci-Tech Innovation Fund (Tsinghua-affiliated), as well as existing shareholders Redpoint China Ventures, Yaotu Capital, and Yuanmu Capital.
Jun Qian
Founder & CEO, Vastai Technologies
Q1
What has been the company's focus over the past year, and what new breakthroughs have you achieved?
Jun Qian: Our focus this year has centered on two main areas: first, core technology development, and second, market and ecosystem expansion. On the technology front, we've made major breakthroughs in AI and video processing, establishing distinctive and highly differentiated core technologies. At the same time, we've completed our technological layout for larger emerging markets. On the ecosystem front, we're advancing both core technology and ecosystem building in parallel. With a customer-centric approach, we're refining our products to perfection. On that foundation, we're cultivating a healthy upstream and downstream ecosystem to jointly drive industry prosperity.
Q2
What aspects of Vastai's company culture do you most identify with and champion?
Jun Qian: The culture I most value and champion is integrity. For a company, integrity means not chasing short-term gains but instead taking the long view and doing the right thing. That's how you build a lasting, great company. Integrity is the cornerstone of sustainable enterprise, and it's a shared cultural value for all of us at Vastai. Beyond that, Vastai's engineering culture also encompasses "customer first," "team spirit," "diligence and pragmatism," "continuous innovation," and "optimism and joy." These together represent the full picture of Vastai's corporate culture.
Q3
Over the next five years or longer, what kind of company do you hope Vastai Technologies will become?
Jun Qian: Vastai just turned three years old. The company's development and prospects over these three years have exceeded my original expectations — particularly the outlook, which is better than I initially envisioned. In the coming years, I hope Vastai will have a well-developed organization and core team, unified and effective culture and values, complete core technologies, and a full product lineup. I hope Vastai's products will gradually achieve scale in the market and build a healthy industry ecosystem. I hope Vastai will become an industry benchmark in the chip sectors we focus on.
Kai Liu
Partner, 5Y Capital
Q1
How do you view Vastai Technologies' growth trajectory?
Kai Liu: As the underlying driver of AI technology, the global AI chip sector is experiencing explosive growth. We've observed that in the US, dozens of AI chip startups emerged around 2016. After nearly five years of development, this space has produced numerous unicorn-level companies. On the business front, different AI chip companies have rapidly iterated products around DSA architectures, developed differentiated competitive capabilities, and most have reached industry deployment stages. In the coming years, they'll enter large-scale mass production and shipment phases. 5Y Capital has consistently paid close attention to China's AI development. We've made substantial investment deployments around core AI technologies and application areas, and Vastai is one of the earliest companies we invested in within the AI chip space.
Since 5Y Capital's investment in 2020, Vastai's founding team has made tremendous progress in team building, product R&D, and industry deployment. As an early investor, we've accompanied the company through its growth journey, witnessing it overcome challenge after challenge. In 2021, the company completed product tape-out and verification, achieving breakthrough commercialization progress. Even compared to US AI chip startups at the same stage, Vastai has demonstrated remarkable development speed, achieving a Chinese breakthrough in underlying AI technology. We're pleased to see the company bring in new investment partners in this latest round. Hard tech entrepreneurship is a long, wet slope — it requires teams and shareholders to have the spirit and will for long-term struggle. We hope to work shoulder to shoulder to usher in a golden age for China's hard tech development.
Founded in December 2018 in Shanghai, Vastai Technologies is a high-end IC design company rooted in China and serving the world. The company currently employs over 300 R&D engineers across Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Xi'an, Chengdu, and Toronto, Canada.
This year has brought a steady stream of good news for Vastai Technologies: its first server-grade AI inference chip successfully taped out, the announcement of a 500 million RMB Series A+ round, and new product launches at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference. Now, on the company's third anniversary, it celebrates another "highlight moment."
This funding round not only strengthens the company's financial reserves but also brings in its second internet strategic investor after Kuaishou — Alibaba. Following this round, the company will continue to refine its product matrix, including large-scale domestic and international deployment of its SV100 series (cloud-edge AI inference and video product line), increased R&D investment in graphics GPU product lines, and initial layout for other intelligent product lines.
Jun Qian, Vastai's founder and CEO, expressed gratitude to new and existing investors for their recognition and continued support of the company's product and technology direction. He also specifically noted: "In the year drawing to a close, we've witnessed firsthand the vibrant vitality of core chip technologies across various emerging application areas. This is the best era for semiconductor practitioners. With the rapid development of internet video livestreaming, short video, computer vision, natural language processing, cloud gaming, cloud desktops, cloud rendering, the metaverse, and other phenomenon-level applications, data center computing demands continue to grow. Downstream customers have higher expectations for chips, hardware, software, and every other dimension. Vastai will continue to extend its product lines and further expand its industry-leading advantages."
"In the future, our world will be surrounded by trillions of pixels," Qian added. "From video processing and enhancement, computer vision, AR/VR, and the metaverse, to intelligent driving — none of it is possible without underlying chip technology. As a high-end chip design company rooted in China with eyes on the global market, Vastai hopes to work with our suppliers, customers, and partners of all kinds to build a healthy symbiotic ecosystem and empower the prosperity of all industries."
5Y Capital (formerly Morningside Venture Capital) currently manages approximately 32 billion RMB across USD and RMB dual-currency funds. 5Y Capital seeks out, supports, and inspires entrepreneurs who are going it alone, providing support from spiritual encouragement to full business operations. We believe that if the "crazy" you that others see starts to be believed in, the world will become a different place.
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