To AI Founders: In 2025, Go to These VCs for Funding | A Year-in-Review of the Primary Market with "An Yong" and Jing Liu

This week, the "Crossroads" year-end review series turns to the primary market. We're joined by Jing Liu, editor-in-chief of "An Yong Waves," which covers primary market reporting, to review what VCs still actively investing in AI this year are thinking about — and what they're actually putting money into.

We hope this episode offers genuine value to founders.

For entrepreneurs, two things always matter most: finding people and finding money. So understanding the primary market, understanding the VC ecosystem, understanding what they're thinking about, what they're watching, even what they're anxious about — these are all things founders should pay attention to, and need to pay attention to.

Coincidentally, "An Yong" just published a piece called "China's Dollar Funds Won't Disappear," an interesting angle that looked at dollar funds' current state and future through the lens of their year-end concentrated AGM season.

— Know yourself and know your enemy, and you can plan your fundraising with precision.

🟢 Part 1: The Full Picture of AI Investment in 2024

02:44 Overall observations on the 2024 AI investment market

• First half: the frenzy of large model investments
• Second half: the rise of AI hardware and embodied intelligence

03:39 Analysis of active funds

• Monolith: the aggressive posture of a new fund
• ZhenFund: 20 years of accumulated network advantages
• HSG: the steady "No Miss" strategy
• Jinqiu: positioning as an AI Native fund
• Shunwei Capital: the comprehensive layout strategy
• BlueRun Ventures: heavy bets on nearly all top-tier projects
• Linear Capital: the high-frequency AI application investor, Bolt
• ... just to name a few

🟢 Part 2: Star Projects and Club Deals of 2024

08:01 Analysis of key large model companies

• Moonshot AI's rise
• MiniMax's steady development
• Baichuan's government resource integration
• 01.AI, Unitree, and AgiBot's A+++++++ rounds...

13:15 Club Deals and star projects

• The definition of Club Deals, and representative projects
• Star projects: Yueguang Zhang, Leon Ming, Renjie Guo, Shengle Wang, Huaiting Zhang, Kun Jing...

20:26 Characteristics of the new generation of AI entrepreneurs

• Balancing technical background with business thinking
• Changes in capital deployment strategy

🟢 Part 3: Facing the Future, Going Global

33:26 The globalization of China's dollar funds

• Major Chinese dollar funds' overseas strategies: Go Global! HSG, Hillhouse, BlueRun Ventures, ZhenFund, Gaorong Ventures, Linear Capital, BAI, Yunqi Capital, GSR Ventures, Jingya Capital, Yunqi Capital...
• It's not just about taking US dollars to be a dollar fund

36:00 Which dollar funds have recently completed fundraising?

38:14 One word to describe the primary market in 2024?

41:35 The beginning of the era of taking sides, the end of the era of sitting on the fence

🟢 Part 4: Early-Stage Incubators Become Important Again

23:42 AI has brought a new startup cycle. Everyone is back at a new starting line, needing to build new circles of friends. Early-stage incubators have become important again.

24:56 China

• Founder Park x Sinovation Ventures
• BlueRun Ventures — Buming Entrepreneurship Camp
• MiraclePlus...

57:17 Silicon Valley

• HSG actively embracing young entrepreneurs
• a16z Speedrun
• HF0
• Y Combinator
• AI Grant, Embed, AGI House...
• Silicon Valley incubator overview: Startup Accelerators & Incubators List

31:19 The endless stream of AI entrepreneurship support programs

• Microsoft Startup Founders Hub
• Google Startups Cloud Program
• NVIDIA Inception
• AWS, Alibaba Cloud, Huawei Cloud, Doubao, Stepfun, Zhipu AI, SiliconFlow...

🟢 "Crossroads" and 2025

49:46 The positioning and vision of "Crossroads"

01:04:34 Hopes for 2025 and the transmission of the spirit of active action

Subscribe to the "Crossroads" podcast 🚦 We follow the industry transformations and new entrepreneurial opportunities brought by the new wave of AI technology. Crossroads is Steve Jobs' metaphor for Apple — standing at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, where great products are born. AI is transforming every industry. We seek out, interview, and bring together "active actors" of the AI era, exploring and embracing new changes and new possibilities alongside them.

👦🏻 Host Koji: Co-founder of The Fair and Tangdao. I believe technology, especially AI, will fundamentally transform society and empower humanity. Welcome to chat with me, bounce ideas around, and connect on what's next. Koji on Jike, Koji's website

👧🏻 Host Ronghui: Works at a tech VC, former Silicon Valley correspondent for Yicai. Ronghui on Jike

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