Qiming Venture Partners' Ye Guantai: In the AI Era, Super Returns Belong Only to Non-Consensus Companies

Editor's Note: Recently, Gary Ye, a partner at Qiming Venture Partners, sat down with ChinaVenture to revisit the firm's investment in Insta360. One of the highest-returning deals in Qiming's history, this success story began with a contrarian bet — at a time when Insta360 founder JK was still an undergraduate, and his vision for a 360° panoramic camera had neither market validation nor industry consensus. In the interview, Ye breaks down the core logic behind early-stage investing and the essential qualities of exceptional founders, while also mapping out the trajectory, opportunities, and breakthrough directions for consumer hardware against the backdrop of AI-driven industry transformation. This article was originally reported by ChinaVenture and is republished here with permission.

"A very down-to-earth young man. He candidly told me what he liked and what he didn't." That's how Gary Ye, partner at Qiming Venture Partners, recalls his first impression of JK, founder of Insta360. In his office, the 24-year-old JK taped two GoPros together and showed him a 360° photo.

In early 2015, Qiming Venture Partners led Insta360's Series B round and continued to back the company in its Series C. Prior to IPO, Qiming held a 9.4% stake in Insta360, making it one of the largest institutional shareholders. Insta360 became one of the highest-returning investments in Qiming's history, second only to Xiaomi.

Ye is not an investor who specializes in consumer hardware — in fact, such a category barely existed back then. His career began at a semiconductor company in Silicon Valley, where he worked as a chip R&D manager and fab manager. He then moved into investment banking, covering Asia's technology sector at Credit Suisse. Upon entering venture capital, he spent nearly a decade at Intel Capital and Highland Capital Partners. He joined Qiming Venture Partners as a partner in 2014, tasked with building out the firm's nascent hard tech practice, focusing on semiconductors, artificial intelligence, smart manufacturing, and enterprise software.

Gary Ye, Partner at Qiming Venture Partners

What struck me most in revisiting Qiming's investment in Insta360 is this: it doesn't follow a neatly logical playbook.

First, this wasn't a case of a so-called consumer hardware investor mapping out a sector, drawing up industry landscapes, ranking players, and systematically sourcing deals. On the contrary, it's a story of an early-stage investor relying on intuition and imagination to bet on an ungraduated young man building a product that didn't exist — and reaping outsized returns. No market validation, no mature supply chain, no industry consensus. The essence of early-stage investing is placing bets where things are still unclear.

Subjectively, this also wasn't a deal driven by some broad "embrace the youth" logic. In fact, whether this twenty-something had sufficient reverence for hardware manufacturing and deep understanding of complex supply chains was Ye's foremost concern. He admits that the hardest part of early-stage investing is always overcoming one's own doubts. Throughout his career, shaped by the nature of hard tech entrepreneurship, the founders he backed were mostly in their forties or older.

I suspect that betting on Insta360 may have had something to do with Ye's love of sports and outdoor hiking. Our informal conversation began with exactly that — he'd recently returned from Patagonia, a mecca for outdoor enthusiasts, describing the landscape as "absolutely stunning, with excellent trail conditions right beside glaciers." Someone passionate about the outdoors would naturally grasp the filming needs of extreme scenarios and have deeper intuition for Insta360's product philosophy. But I'll leave that for him to confirm.

01/ "It takes a founder with extraordinary imagination to even conceive of such a product"

ChinaVenture: Let's talk about how you invested in Insta360. Qiming came in at the Series B in early 2015, when the company was still in its infancy and hardware business models were considered unsexy. I'm curious what led you to discover this company and what your investment logic was.

Gary Ye: I think investing boils down to three things. First, find an exceptional entrepreneur and team and invest in them. Second, identify a niche or contrarian opportunity where we can get in early at a reasonable valuation. Third, stay with them for the long haul and help them grow into a substantial company that generates financial returns. Those are the three dimensions, and Insta360 was no exception.

JK came to us saying he wanted to build a 360° panoramic camera. He'd been working on a project to document college life but found the results generic, and wanted a distinctive product to better capture life's moments. A 360° camera wouldn't just shoot what's in front of you — it would simultaneously capture left, right, behind, even above and below, getting the clouds in the sky and the ground beneath in one shot. He believed this would make for a much richer product.

When we invested, we found him unusual. He had deep product insight, aesthetic sensibility, was a technology enthusiast, and very smart. So we tagged him as: a truly unique entrepreneur, and a product-manager-type talent.

As for whether this was the best or hottest time to invest in hardware, I'd say probably not. And the logic for investing in hardware then was quite different from today. A decade ago, China's hardware scene was seen more as incremental innovation, or investment in OEM and basic component stacking. So companies and opportunities like Insta360 were extremely scarce — but we happened to find one that matched our taste, and we invested regardless of whether it was a hot space.

In fact, Insta360 wasn't the only hardware company we invested in during 2015. We also backed two or three other hardware companies that have become quite prominent. For example, in 2015 we invested in UBTECH, and around the same time we invested in Suunto, a sports watch company, and Roborock, a successful robot vacuum company.

ChinaVenture: From which dimensions did you determine that JK was a unique entrepreneur?

Gary Ye: Before he came to me, I'd never imagined a 360° panoramic camera could exist. Since there was no such product at the time, I couldn't picture what his creation would look like. He took two GoPros, taped them together, shot a 360° photo, and showed me — this is what it would look like, he said. Only then did I realize how rich the panoramic imaging experience could be, and what cool effects could be achieved. I felt it must take someone with extraordinary imagination to even want to build such a product.

ChinaVenture: Investing in such a young founder and such a niche company at that time — there must have been internal debate at Qiming?

Gary Ye: Debate is inevitable. I think what's unique about Qiming is our diverse team backgrounds, and that we have dedicated teams focused on hardware. I came from a semiconductor background and later joined Intel Capital, Duane Kuang (Editor's note: Duane Kuang, Founding Managing Partner of Qiming Venture Partners) came from Cisco and Intel, and quite a few colleagues have hardware backgrounds. When evaluating such a team, internal questions naturally arose: Is the team strong enough? Can such an unprecedented, original product succeed? And what about JK's understanding of manufacturing and going global... There was much to discuss. But I think Qiming also has an inclusive culture and genuinely trusted the team executing this project. Meanwhile we had our own deep convictions. So after discussion, people trusted our judgment and supported the investment.

ChinaVenture: Among the various discussions about this company back then, did anyone think the founder was too young?

Gary Ye: That was indeed somewhat controversial. Honestly, I think the hardest part of this deal was overcoming my own doubts. When we decided to invest, in February or March 2015, JK hadn't even graduated from Nanjing University yet. His team members were all classmates, none had ever held a formal job — very young. So there were concerns. I wondered whether he had sufficient reverence for hardware, whether he deeply understood supply chains — these were areas where he'd likely need tutoring. But I trusted my intuition, and after investing, we indeed helped a lot with talent recruitment, supply chain prioritization, and securing core component resources.

ChinaVenture: Would you call this "intuition" a kind of sensibility?

Gary Ye: I think you could call it sensibility. I felt he was a very special person, and having that distinctive presence as a CEO matters quite a bit.

ChinaVenture: So in the early assessment of this company, the bet on the person outweighed the bet on the business?

Gary Ye: Indeed. As we discussed, the most important thing in investing is finding the right person first. Because if the person is exceptional, the person and team can overcome difficulties — whether navigating cycles or short-term setbacks.

ChinaVenture: What developments later convinced you that Insta360 deserved continued investment?

Gary Ye: Mainly the accelerating business trajectory. Its first product, the Nano, was already shipping with decent overseas reception, and the second generation was in development and would launch soon.

We also came to understand JK more deeply: despite his youth, he's someone with remarkably comprehensive capabilities. From the very beginning, he positioned Insta360 as both innovative and global, with international vision. From day one, Insta360 established its presence in overseas media, recruited KOLs across countries, and showcased at international exhibitions like CES.

The strategic foresight to think about going global in 2015 was quite unique. He had clear thinking about internationalization: going global allows higher pricing, which enables higher gross margins, which generates sufficient revenue to cover R&D while avoiding excessive domestic competition. So Insta360 was profitable at a very early stage.

ChinaVenture: Compared to your initial understanding, in what ways did JK's capabilities exceed your expectations?

Gary Ye: I think it's his maturity in identifying innovative product needs and market预判. In hardware investing, markets often have ceilings. A company might become leader of a niche market, but that niche itself has limits. What I admire most about JK is his ability to continuously find adjacent niche markets around his core focus, then connect these small markets into a platform. He always stayed true to his original mission of "capturing human life," constantly expanding that mission, and ultimately creating more and newer products. This capability exceeded my imagination.

ChinaVenture: In your observation, what has been the biggest challenge this company has faced?

Gary Ye: They've actually been quite smooth. From the beginning until now, they haven't encountered too many challenges. Their product launched in the second year, and sales have nearly doubled every year since.

ChinaVenture: Is the current competition between Insta360 and DJI a significant challenge for them?

Gary Ye: I think they actually welcome such competition. It's a pretty good era for users — from a user experience perspective, consumers end up with the best products.

02/ "AI era + contrarian bets will produce more super-return companies"

ChinaVenture: For three consecutive years, the ChinaVenture ranking's Best Return award has been "vacant." Some believe the era of outsized venture capital returns has passed — from any industry's development curve, early stages yield暴利 (windfall profits), then as more participants enter, margins compress, so high VC returns were inherently a phase-specific phenomenon. What's your view?

Gary Ye: I think venture capital, by nature, generates most of a fund's returns from a handful of deals — it's inherently dispersed and low-probability. If there hasn't been a Best Return award for three years, first, good returns are extremely dispersed, so I can't say when one will emerge. Also, the IPO window has narrowed somewhat in recent years.

But I'm very optimistic about the future. Besides Insta360, you mentioned Biren Technology and Zhipu AI. Qiming also invested in Zhipu AI, which has risen five- or six-fold since the beginning of this year. I believe the AI era should produce more super-return companies, and we're quite looking forward to that. But as I mentioned earlier, the core is this: the essence of investing is betting where things are unclear. We shouldn't chase hot trends, but instead get in early through contrarian bets at reasonable valuations. If the valuation is too high, the returns won't be great either.

ChinaVenture: Currently, primary market investment themes are highly concentrated — AI, embodied intelligence, consumer hardware, controlled nuclear fusion, quantum computing — and the window from contrarian to consensus is shrinking, with many projects commanding high early-stage valuations. In this environment, has Qiming's approach to consumer hardware investing shifted? As far as I know, virtually every firm is looking at this sector.

Gary Ye: Consumer hardware is an extremely broad category. Just to give some examples, recently we've seen projects like AI electric guitars, robot puppies, and AI pets. For each project, we have to assess whether the founder has world-class aesthetic sensibility, product innovation capability, brand-building ability, and also consider their global expansion capability, customer insight, supply chain control, and so on. Each hardware subcategory has different considerations. So in a sense, if you divide hardware investing into so many subcategories, it's not particularly hot, because each subcategory is quite different.

At the same time, I don't think it makes sense to invest in everything just because I'm looking at hardware. Overall, if you divide hardware investing into many subcategories, it hasn't overheated. But if an institution, because Insta360 succeeded, then tries to invest in every consumer hardware project without deeper analysis of which ones are worth backing, I think that becomes dangerous.

ChinaVenture: Looking at the Insta360 case — during the five-year fundraising window, Insta360 completed multiple rounds totaling only around 500 million RMB, essentially using minimal capital leverage to become "global number one" in a niche market. Simply put, back then it was contrarian, with a first-round valuation of just tens of millions; now hardware investing has become consensus, and valuations have been bid up. From a returns perspective, does this mean the door to outsized returns in this sector has already closed?

Gary Ye: Overall, because hardware has become hot recently with more participants, even first-round valuations are starting to rise — that is indeed a concern. But we'll still try to find contrarian opportunities within hot sectors, getting in early for outsized returns.

ChinaVenture: Under this FOMO-driven sentiment, have you observed any absurd industry phenomena?

Gary Ye: There's one philosophy where I differ from some peers. Many peers now like to back people from major hardware OEMs — as long as someone comes from these big hardware companies, they're eager to invest, and those companies get quite high valuations. I think we need to think more carefully. These big company executives certainly have very rich experience, but experience isn't the issue — product intuition matters more. Consumer hardware is fundamentally an industry highly dependent on product sense.

ChinaVenture: How long do you think this wave of enthusiasm will last?

Gary Ye: Hard to say, but I think it might last two or three years.

ChinaVenture: Can companies of Insta360's scale or larger still emerge from this?

Gary Ye: We can certainly find companies of that scale, but the probability of another Insta360 emerging might be one in a thousand.

ChinaVenture: In what sense do you mean that?

Gary Ye: If we look from 2015 to now, companies like Insta360 could probably be counted on one hand, but thousands of companies were doing hardware during those ten years.

ChinaVenture: Consumer hardware only started getting fiercely contested by investors last year. Is this wave of consumer hardware enthusiasm driven by Insta360's wealth effect? Is there a lot of irrational sentiment pushing it?

Gary Ye: Insta360's success illustrates a point I made earlier. Ten years ago, a company like Insta360 was quite unusual. Back then, people had a rather stereotyped impression of Shenzhen hardware companies: technology copied from others, or doing OEM work. Simply put — low margins, no global expansion, little originality, no software ecosystem. I think that stereotype has been completely shattered by Insta360 and several other successful companies today.

The desire to find the next Insta360 is, in principle, a very good thing. But the core comes back to what I said earlier: don't look for a second Insta360 — the second Insta360 definitely won't be Insta360, but rather a new company with a new category and innovative capabilities in a new dimension.

ChinaVenture: So what's your specific approach to hardware investing now? More top-down or bottom-up? I used to think the logic for this wave of hardware investing was that AI technology could solve previously poorly addressed needs, but later found that many projects don't actually have AI — things like tofu machines and portable capsule coffee machines are also getting funded.

Gary Ye: It's actually both. Bottom-up, we look more at founder quality and aesthetic sensibility — this is crucial. Top-down, we assess whether products have a certain global格局 (global vision), such as how they use AI, why they use AI, and whether the market is too narrow.

I actually think that whether it's AI hardware or consumer hardware, it's fundamentally not a new category. As you said, AI is now everywhere — there's deep AI and shallow AI, but it's all AI. Insta360's products are also AI-enabled now. Previously, editing photos or videos required manual work, but AI can now help edit, and very well. Even with 360° video, because it captures above, below, left, and right simultaneously, AI can help select the most worth-watching angles. All products are becoming AI-enabled.

But while AI-enabling happens, we still come back to the logic I mentioned: does the product itself address user pain points, is the experience smooth, can it differentiate from competitors, will consumers genuinely pay for it, can it achieve branding and globalization. I don't think these questions are simply solved by AI — the screening logic still applies.

ChinaVenture: So whether something is AI-enabled or not isn't a hard criterion for your hardware screening?

Gary Ye: Whether it has AI won't be a hard criterion. We want to invest in a new category with certain moats, that can influence user mindsets, forge deep emotional connections, cultivate user habits, and have some platform attributes and virality — only such products can become big. We want to invest in the next great company.

ChinaVenture: Hardware is hardware, but the demands on founders for consumer hardware versus chips, semiconductors, and such are quite different, right?

Gary Ye: Consumer hardware investing is actually quite difficult because the scope is broad. You need to assess whether founders have product definition and innovation capabilities, whether they can find technological first-mover advantages, plus brand building, global expansion, and supply chain management capabilities. Overall, the capability requirements for the team are quite comprehensive.

This differs from chip startups. Chips are fundamentally about making a component — upstream and downstream customer requirements are generally clear, and what's needed is more technology-oriented capability. If you can build it, you can sell it. Of course, building it itself may be very difficult and take many years. For hardware investing, we look more at the technical capabilities of founders and founding teams.

Software solves more workflow problems and requires deep understanding of the targeted scenario: for enterprise finance software, you need deep understanding of departmental operations; for customer-facing software, you need deep understanding of industry business models. Consumer electronics and consumer hardware require very broad, comprehensive capabilities.

ChinaVenture: Qiming began investing in Insta360 in 2015, and only completed its exit via IPO in 2025 — a very winding road to listing. As investors, did you feel anxious during this process? Did you need to balance LP demands for exits?

Gary Ye: There was anxiety, and internal pressure to exit. But what encouraged and steadied us was this: looking back, during those four years waiting to list, its financial metrics kept growing — nearly doubling every year, both revenue and net profit.

Looking at 2024 revenue, compared to other companies queued for the STAR Market, its revenue was probably in the top 10%, and net profit also in the top 10%. So it's an excellent company that was simply waiting to go public.

From this perspective, I think we could reassure LPs that its financial metrics fully met listing requirements, even ranking in the top 10% of already-listed companies.

ChinaVenture: When you invested in Insta360 back then, had you envisioned this type of business, this company, reaching IPO? Did you have a vague directional判断?

Gary Ye: In early-stage venture capital, we're all very optimistic and imaginative people — otherwise we couldn't survive so many winters or see future returns. Returns are a low-probability event, but what we expect is a high-probability, large-amount return, a high-multiple return. At Qiming, every new early-stage investment we make carries an expectation of going public.

ChinaVenture: I've spoken with other investors who believe the previous wave of consumer hardware brands generally faced market ceiling crises and were all looking for second growth curves. There are already too many consumer brands with insufficiently large niche markets — could this be a bottleneck that consumer hardware companies now face?

Gary Ye: I think consumer hardware has many subcategories, each with its own ceiling — not necessarily trillion- or hundred-billion-RMB markets; many are ten-billion-RMB markets. If you can become a clear number one in a ten-billion-RMB market, you can still go public. The core is first becoming number one in your subcategory, then maintaining market share. What matters is your user appeal, loyalty, whether you have sufficient moats to defend market share, rather than everyone intensifying competition where you make a lot today and little tomorrow. I think this is the challenge most hardware companies face.

ChinaVenture: Eleven years ago, JK as a post-90s founder was very young. Investing in young people was quite adventurous then, but now major institutions are all embracing youth and挖掘 "prodigies." Looking at consumer hardware specifically, do you use age as one filter for screening entrepreneurs?

Gary Ye: Actually no. My only bias is that I hope the entrepreneur has genuine, heartfelt passion for the category — preferably being a heavy user themselves. They may have used many other products and found them inadequate, feeling compelled to create something new. They can say "if I love this product, my kindred spirits will too." I think entrepreneurs having this conviction matters greatly to me.

ChinaVenture: Although you didn't invest in JK from a "bet on youth" angle, many investors in this space now consider age. How do you understand this rationality? If we attribute by outcomes, in your view, is there an age distribution among excellent consumer hardware entrepreneurs?

Gary Ye: Our investment volume is limited. Among our successfully invested consumer hardware cases, JK was in his early twenties when we invested, UBTECH founder Zhou Jian was in his thirties, and Roborock founder Jing Chang was also in his thirties. Broadly speaking, they were indeed mostly in their twenties and thirties, but we have also invested in entrepreneurs in their forties and fifties.

ChinaVenture: That's good — no age discrimination.

Gary Ye: Wouldn't that be discriminating against myself?

ChinaVenture: I wonder if this perspective also relates to your previous experience? Chip and semiconductor fields often require founders with very rich industry experience.

Gary Ye: Yes, so in recent years in chips and semiconductors, I've encountered many entrepreneurs close to my own age, because semiconductor CEOs are generally over forty.

ChinaVenture: JK himself summarized four laws of Insta360's success: the era of mass entrepreneurship and innovation, the rise of YouTube, supply chain dividends, and cross-border infrastructure. For this current wave of younger startups, besides AI加持, what other factors would you call dividends?

Gary Ye: For Chinese hardware entrepreneurs, China has a tremendous dividend — the world's most complete, highest-quality, and most diligent supply chain. Over the past decade, China has made tremendous strides in this regard, achieving innovation across hardware subcategories. For example, our EVs are world-leading, our robots are world-leading, and of course Insta360's products are world-leading. I think all these products are built on China having the world's most complete supply chain, which is an essential capability for making hardware products.

People might say Insta360's camera is original, but may not realize it contains 500 components — down to a single screw or rubber gasket, all original. If a small company undertakes such innovation, and every supply chain requires enormous time, effort, and cost to produce components, the price would be very high. I believe that for the next decade, the global center of consumer hardware innovation will remain in China.

---

Author | Liu Yanqiu

Source | ChinaVenture

Qiming Headlines | Qiming Venture Partners and Portfolio Companies Win Multiple Awards Including Top 4 Best VC Firm in China at ChinaVenture 2025 Rankings Qiming Perspectives | Qiming's Gary Ye: Insta360's Decade of Dedication, the Immense Imaginative Space of "Imaging + AI Technology" Dialogue | "AI + Hardware," Insta360's JK on How to Keep the Originality Flywheel Spinning

Founded in 2006, Qiming Venture Partners currently manages 11 USD funds and 7 RMB funds, with total assets under management reaching $9.5 billion. Since inception, the firm has focused on investing in early- and growth-stage outstanding enterprises in Technology and Healthcare innovation.

To date, Qiming Venture Partners has invested in over 580 high-growth innovative companies, of which more than 210 have listed on the NYSE, NASDAQ, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or exited through M&A and other means. Over 80 portfolio companies have become recognized unicorns or super-unicorns.

Many Qiming portfolio companies have grown into the most influential companies in their respective fields, including Xiaomi (01810.HK), Meituan (03690.HK), Bilibili (NASDAQ: BILI, 09626.HK), Zhihu (NYSE: ZH, 02390.HK), Roborock (688169.SH), Hesai Technology (NASDAQ: HSAI, 02525.HK), UBTECH (09880.HK), WeRide (NASDAQ: WRD, 0800.HK), HyperStrong (688411.SH), Insta360 (688775.SH), Unisound (09678.HK), Biren Technology (06082.HK), Zhipu AI (02513.HK), Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals (603087.SH), Tigermed (300347.SZ, 03347.HK), Zai Lab (NASDAQ: ZLAB, 09688.HK), CanSino Biologics (688185.SH, 06185.HK), Schrödinger (NASDAQ: SDGR), MicroPort EP MedTech (688617.SH), Sanyou Medical (688085.SH), Amoy Diagnostics (300685.SZ), SinoCellTech (688520.SH), Insilico Medicine (03696.HK), Hope Medicine, Yuanxin Technology, MediLink Therapeutics, LaNova Medicines, StepFun, and others.