Qiming Venture Partners' Alex Zhou: AXERA's "Chip and AI" Expertise and Platform Strategy Built Its Success

According to IPO Zaozhidao, AXera Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "AXera") officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on February 10, 2026, under the stock code "0600."

As "China's first edge AI chip stock," AXera has received investments from dozens of well-known financial institutions and corporate investors since its founding. Among them, Qiming Venture Partners led AXera's Pre-A round in early 2020, becoming the company's earliest investor, and continued to support the company in two subsequent funding rounds. Prior to the IPO, Qiming Venture Partners held over 6% of AXera's shares, making it the company's second-largest institutional investor.

Alex Zhou, Managing Partner of Qiming Venture Partners, stated: "The AXera team combines deep accumulation in the chip industry with leading core AI algorithm capabilities. What's more, they have consistently pursued a platform strategy, building differentiated advantages through vertical iteration of IP technology and horizontal expansion across application areas. This gives us firm conviction in their continued growth in the AI chip space. I look forward to AXera achieving more innovation and faster acceleration after its IPO. Qiming Venture Partners has always believed that investing in AI represents the greatest certainty in Chinese investing over the next two decades. We adhere to a 'half-step ahead' investment logic — making decisive moves when technological breakthroughs have been validated but market consensus has yet to form. At the same time, we deeply empower companies through 'early engagement and full journey companionship,' escorting them from core technology R&D to commercialization and ultimately to capital markets. AXera's successful IPO is the most solid validation of this entire AI hard tech investment logic and methodology."

Notably, this is also Qiming Venture Partners' third AI-related IPO in less than 40 days since the beginning of 2026 (following Biren Technology and Zhipu AI earlier), and Qiming was not only an early investor in all three companies — Alex Zhou himself served as a director at each company prior to their listings, accompanying them from startup stage all the way to the capital markets.

Alex Zhou, Managing Partner of Qiming Venture Partners

01/

AXera's Team Possesses the Rare Capability of "Understanding Both Chips and AI"

A Platform Strategy Pursued from Day One Forged Today's Success

Zhou revealed that when Qiming made its initial investment in early 2020, it was deeply attracted by AXera's rare capabilities — combining deep accumulation in the chip industry with leading core AI algorithm strength, successfully achieving a two-way breakthrough of "understanding both chips and AI."

"Founder Qiu Xiaoxin has over 20 years of semiconductor industry experience, having worked at AT&T Labs and subsequently served as Vice President at Broadcom and CTO at UNISOC, with complete experience and technical management expertise across the full chain from chip design to mass production. At the same time, the founding team includes top-tier AI algorithm talent in the industry, capable of integrating AI technology into chips," Zhou explained. "Today, we can see that its self-developed Aixin Tongyuan NPU, with mixed precision and efficient architecture, adapts to mainstream AI models and enables efficient edge-side deployment; Aixin Zhimou AI-ISP delivers outstanding optical imaging performance at world-class levels, building solid technological moats for the company."

In Zhou's view, what deserves even more recognition is AXera's platform strategy pursued from the very beginning — achieving differentiated advantages through vertical iteration of IP technology and horizontal expansion across application areas, reusing core IP and reducing R&D costs. "The design and tape-out process for a single AI chip requires enormous R&D costs. If it's only used in one scenario, the amortization of R&D costs is too high and the economics don't work out. But if it can be reused multiple times across different scenarios, it enables efficient amortization of R&D costs, continuously reducing the marginal cost of core technology. This both amplifies scale effects and improves commercial profitability, and more importantly, feeds back into continuous iteration and optimization of core IP through multi-scenario deployment, constantly reinforcing the technological moat of the platform strategy and creating mutual empowerment between technological value and commercial value."

Additionally, Zhou pointed out that as one of the most active investors in the AI space, Qiming Venture Partners believes in this paradigm of AI technology diffusion: AI empowering thousands of industries will necessarily begin with breakthroughs in cloud models and computing power. But as technology diffusion moves toward scale and deployment moves toward depth, edge-side and terminal-side deployment capability is the core lever supporting large-scale implementation and completion of commercial closed loops. This cannot happen without products and technologies like AXera's.

When discussing expectations for AXera after listing, Zhou said that just as NVIDIA continued to innovate and constantly launch disruptive products after its IPO, he also looks forward to AXera achieving more innovation and faster acceleration after its IPO. "IPO is not the finish line — it's only reaching the 5,200-meter Everest Base Camp. The real challenge is the sprint toward the 8,848-meter summit. IPO is not a celebration stage, but a staging ground to face even greater challenges, accumulate strength and resources, and prepare for the next push."

02/

The Best Validation of Qiming Venture Partners' Investment Methodology and Underlying Convictions

Firm Belief That AI Is the Greatest Certainty in Chinese Investing Over the Next Two Decades

With AXera's successful listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today, Qiming Venture Partners has also welcomed its third AI-related IPO since the beginning of the year.

On this, Zhou expressed considerable emotion: "I truly didn't expect to see three portfolio companies go public within the first month of my career. This achievement is both surprising and precious. At its core, this harvest comes from standing at the crest of the great wave of AI technology — benefiting from the institutional innovation dividend of Hong Kong's dedicated channel for tech companies, which allows quality hard tech enterprises to gain capital market recognition earlier; from the market's high attention and enthusiasm for AI themes; and from the triple blessing of era, policy, and market."

Of course, this result of riding the momentum more fundamentally validates Qiming Venture Partners' long-held investment methodology and underlying convictions. "We have always firmly believed that investing in AI is the greatest certainty in Chinese investing over the next two decades. Since 2013, we have deeply cultivated the AI track, building full-industry-chain coverage spanning infrastructure layer, model layer, and application layer. We adhere to a 'half-step ahead' investment logic, making decisive moves when technological breakthroughs have been validated but market consensus has yet to form. At the same time, we deeply empower enterprises through 'early engagement and full journey companionship,' escorting them from core technology R&D to commercialization to capital market listing. The successful IPOs of these three companies are the most solid validation of this entire AI hard tech investment logic and methodology," Zhou said.

Zhou emphasized that Biren Technology, Zhipu AI, and AXera each have their own unique characteristics and strengths, but what enabled Qiming to make decisive bets at the earliest stages of all three companies and continue investing lies in Qiming's consistent investment philosophy.

"We have always believed that the essence of venture capital follows the power law — a small number of quality projects generate outsized returns and become the core supporting the entire fund's value. Therefore, in our early-stage deployment, we always firmly focus on technology targets in long snow slopes and large market tracks. From Biren Technology's cloud GPUs to Zhipu AI's large models to AXera's terminal and edge-side AI inference chips, the domains they operate in are all core tracks in the AI ecosystem, with vast market space and rigid industrial demand — golden tracks combining both technological depth and commercial value. Beyond quality track fundamentals, all three teams possess硬核 technical strength深耕 in their respective fields, unique understanding of industrial demand, and execution capability to translate technology into commercial value. This is also key to our early-stage focus and long-term companionship," Zhou added. "Of course, we also always strive to be the co-pilot and navigator on enterprises' development journeys. Only with genuine financial commitment and holding sufficiently important stakes can we more deeply accompany and witness enterprises as they advance through this thorny journey, while as investors we also gain enormous returns beyond financial rewards."

Regarding this wave of hard tech companies' "listing surge," Zhou has his own perspective — "An IPO is never forced through, but grows into being. Every company has a market cap after IPO, and valuing that market cap is essentially the capital market's discounted present value of its future ability to continuously create value. Only with硬核 value creation capability that can support long-term development can a company have a reasonable market cap, making such an IPO more valuable and truly水到渠成. Conversely, lacking this core capability, even if a company lists it will be fleeting like a shooting star, which will instead negatively impact the company's own development."

Source | IPO Zaozhidao

Author | Stone Jin

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

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

Many of Qiming Venture Partners' 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, 00800.HK), HyperStrong (688411.SH), Insta360 (688775.SH), Unisound (09678.HK), Biren Technology (06082.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, Zhipu AI, StepFun, among others.