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5Y News Monthly

"5Y News Monthly" is a regular column from 5Y Capital. At the start of each month, we look back at news from the past month involving 5Y and our portfolio companies, sharing it with friends who follow us in the hope of helping you understand us better.

01 Portfolio Company Highlights

Major news about funding rounds, IPOs, strategic partnerships, breakthroughs, and new product launches from 5Y portfolio companies.

02 5Y Capital Updates

News about 5Y honors, investor interviews, and thought leadership.

Note: Companies are listed in alphabetical order by pinyin.

01

Portfolio Company Highlights

Horizon Robotics Partners with BYD

On April 21, BYD and Horizon Robotics officially announced a production program partnership. BYD will equip select models with Horizon's high-performance, high-compute autonomous driving chip Journey 5, creating a more competitive integrated driving-and-parking solution to enable advanced autonomous driving capabilities. Under the plan, BYD models featuring Journey 5 are expected to hit the market as early as mid-2023. This partnership marks a breakthrough in concrete business collaboration following BYD's investment in Horizon Robotics and their strategic partnership agreement, making BYD the first automaker to officially announce adoption of the Journey 5 chip. Read more.

Kuanggong Group Supports Shanghai's COVID-19 Response

In early April, as food supplies became the most critical lifeline for Shanghai residents under lockdown, many communities faced severe shortages. Upon learning of the situation, Kuanggong Group quickly mobilized internal and external resources and decisively joined the fight against the pandemic. By April 14, the company had donated over 38,000 care packages, contributing to the city's epidemic prevention and control efforts. Read more.

Kuaishou Opens COVID-19 Assistance Portal

During the pandemic, Kuaishou launched a COVID-19 assistance portal. With coordination from local media outlets and support from government agencies, disease control centers, and volunteer organizations, the platform opened a door for those in need of help. Meanwhile, to further leverage its platform strength in pandemic response, Kuaishou Commerce's "Warm Spring 2022" initiative and farmer-supporting programs like "Fighting the Pandemic to Protect Spring Farming, Technology Provides the Support" were rolled out to help ensure stable production and daily life across more industries during the outbreak. Read more.

METiS Pharmaceuticals Closes Two Funding Rounds

METiS Pharmaceuticals, focused on AI-driven drug and delivery system development, announced on April 6 that it had completed two consecutive funding rounds totaling $150 million. Both rounds were led by PICC Capital and China Life Private Equity Investment Company Limited, with follow-on investments from returning and new investors including HSG, 5Y Capital, CMB International, Lightspeed, and Monolith. The company will continue advancing its AI drug and delivery system platform while actively expanding partnerships to advance more clinically valuable small-molecule and nucleic acid drug pipelines into clinical trials alongside collaborators. Read more.

PhiGent Robotics and ZongMu Technology Form Strategic Partnership

Beijing PhiGent Robotics Technology announced in April a strategic partnership with ZongMu Technology. The two companies will leverage their respective technical strengths in high-speed and low-speed autonomous driving to advance intelligent driving technology R&D and deep collaboration for mutual benefit. Together, they will work with industry partners to develop production-ready solutions for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and high-level autonomous driving, accelerating the transformation toward vehicle intelligence. Read more.

Lizhi Partners with Koliliko

In April, Lizhi Group entered into an IP strategic partnership with Koliliko, focused on deep collaboration around IP content, animated derivatives, and more. The campaign has already launched across multiple channels on the Lizhi App homepage, with Koliliko characters integrated into the platform's virtual blind box feature — creating an online interactive blind box experience that doubled new user acquisition and revenue metrics on its first day. Read more.

Xmov Completes $130 Million in Funding

On April 6, Xmov, a global leader in metaverse infrastructure, announced the completion of its Series B and Series C rounds totaling $130 million. The Series B was co-led by Qingxin Capital and Jinsha Capital, with HSG and 5Y Capital making follow-on investments for the third consecutive round. The $110 million Series C was co-led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and a prominent strategic investor, with Northern Light Venture Capital and Index Capital participating. Read more.

SenseTime Supports Shanghai's COVID-19 Response

In March, responding to public venue epidemic prevention needs, SenseTime launched its digital sentinel access system integrating six functions: mask detection, body temperature screening, health code verification, vaccination status, nucleic acid test results, and digital ID. In April, to aid Shanghai's pandemic response, SenseTime urgently organized supply chain resources and coordinated personnel and materials, reaching out to relevant authorities to provide free protective suits, masks, gloves, camp beds, blankets, and other epidemic prevention supplies, as well as instant noodles and drinking water to support residents' material needs during the outbreak. Read more.

Aihuishou (ATRenew) Donates Over 1 Million RMB in Supplies Direct to Frontline Pandemic Response

As Shanghai's COVID-19 situation grew severe in April, Aihuishou (ATRenew) Group actively exercised corporate social responsibility, donating vegetables and epidemic prevention supplies worth over 1 million RMB to support the city's pandemic control efforts.

ATRenew donated nearly 80 tons of vegetables and living supplies to Shanghai's Yangpu, Baoshan, Changning, and Hongkou districts. Additionally, the company donated 370 secondhand phones worth 400,000 RMB to Yangpu District for nucleic acid test information collection, contributed 200,000 RMB to Fudan University for reusable fresh-keeping food containers, and donated protective suits, gloves, goggles, and other medical supplies worth 115,000 RMB to Tongji University. Read more.

Unknown Acquires Clinical-Stage Ulcerative Colitis Pipeline

Unknown, an industry-leading AI-plus-innovative-therapies microbiome drug R&D company, announced in April that it had acquired the clinical-stage drug candidate M201 from Assembly Biosciences, Inc. Assembly is a clinical-stage innovative therapies company focused on hepatitis B virus and other viral diseases. Powered by Unknown's top-tier AI and biotechnology platforms, M201 becomes the company's third microbiome drug pipeline to reach clinical stage. Unknown expects to initiate Phase 1b clinical trials for M201 within the year. Read more.

Xiaomi Donates to "Peking University Xiaomi Innovation Development Fund"

On April 26, the donation signing ceremony for the "Peking University Xiaomi Innovation Development Fund" was held at Xiaomi's Beijing Science Park. Initiated by the Xiaomi Foundation, the donation aims to advance cutting-edge research and technological innovation at Peking University in integrated circuits, psychology and cognitive science, and other fields, while cultivating a cohort of high-caliber, creative, interdisciplinary talent who will lead the future in academic research and industry. In recent years, the Xiaomi Foundation has focused its philanthropic support on domestic scientific research and education. Through programs including Xiaomi Scholarships and Grants, Xiaomi Young Scholars, and Xiaomi Sports Scholarships, the foundation's planned donations now exceed 1 billion RMB. Read more.

Pony.ai First to Receive Approval for Driverless Robotaxi Pilot in Beijing

On April 28, Pony.ai became the first company to receive Beijing's Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone approval for "driverless demonstration application road testing," permitting it to offer autonomous ride-hailing services (Robotaxi) to the public with no safety driver in the driver's seat and a safety operator in the front passenger seat. Beijing became the first Chinese city to launch passenger vehicle driverless commercial pilot operations, providing policy innovation and support for the continued development of autonomous driverless testing. Read more.

Xpeng Motors Forms Strategic Partnership with Agricultural Bank of China

In April, Xpeng Motors and the Agricultural Bank of China Guangdong Branch held a strategic partnership signing ceremony in Guangzhou. Under the agreement, ABC Guangdong Branch will grant Xpeng Motors a 7.5 billion RMB comprehensive credit facility to support the company's operations and growth. This marks the largest credit facility ever granted by ABC to a new EV maker, with diverse business types — signaling mutual trust, deepened cooperation, and ABC's strong recognition of Xpeng Motors' industry position and growth prospects. Read more.

02

5Y Capital Updates

5Y Partners Qin Liu, Zhang Fei, and Yuan Ye Named to 2022 Forbes Midas List

Forbes magazine released the "2022 Midas List," with 5Y Capital founding partner Qin Liu (No. 4), partner Zhang Fei (No. 19), and partner Yuan Ye (No. 78) making the list. 5Y Capital became the Chinese investment firm with the most listees.

The Forbes Midas List is one of venture capital's most prestigious rankings. Each year it selects 100 top VCs globally who have demonstrated exceptional foresight in identifying and backing high-growth tech companies at early stages, helping them create outstanding value as they scale. Read more.

Fly, Leave the Earth's Surface Behind 5Y Tavern Vol. 4

For this edition of 5Y Tavern, we opened a bottle of baijiu at a Hunan restaurant in Panyu District, Guangzhou, and listened to Zhao Deli talk about his obsession with flight.

Nearly four years have passed since Zhao's flying motorcycle first achieved test flight success. Compared to the solitary courage of those early days, his company and team are now transformed. Through systematic R&D and exploration, they've found a clearer path. And in this entrepreneur from Hunan, one can still see the same courage that drove his first attempts at flight.

What does flight mean to humanity? Once the obsession takes hold, it cannot be stopped. As Wilbur Wright said, flight for him was a "calling." It is humanity's aspiration. This era desperately needs things that push beyond the boundaries of imagination. Read more.

5Y Capital seeks out, supports, and inspires lonely entrepreneurs, providing support from the spiritual to the operational. We believe that if the person others see as crazy starts to be believed in, the world will become a different place.

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