The First USD VC Fund to Close in 2026
What comes after Aksu. *(Note: "阿克苏之后的故事" literally means "the story after Aksu." If this refers to a specific title or context I'm missing — such as a book, film, or article — please provide more details and I can refine the translation.)*
@Jing Liu
Eleven months after spinning out as an independent brand, Yungang Huang has made it official: Source Code Rhythm's debut fund has held its final close.
Huang said the fund closed above its $150 million target. Its LP base spans Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, global fund-of-funds, multinational corporations, strategic corporate investors, global family offices, and prominent entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, Source Code Rhythm has also formally launched its RMB fund raise.
As elsewhere has previously noted, just as investors are hunting for the next generation of founders, LPs are actively searching for the next generation of GPs. This dynamic has been evident even in dollar-denominated fundraising: several new funds currently in market have actually oversubscribed, including both Source Code Rhythm and Monolith before it. Yet both ultimately chose to cap their sizes.
What makes Source Code Rhythm's case more distinctive is its origins: it is a new fund that incubated within Source Code Capital and then spun out completely, with independent team, fundraising, and investment decision-making.
Two months ago, Huang sat down with elsewhere for a video podcast, sharing his full personal history: growing up in Aksu, getting into Zhejiang University, breaking into venture capital — a story that captures the layered complexity of contemporary China. Now Huang is ready to tell the second half: how he plans to evolve into a fund manager now that Source Code Rhythm is operating independently.
Huang told us that Source Code Rhythm will focus on three core areas — AI infrastructure and applications, robotics and hardware, and global expansion — "seeking structural opportunities driven by technological disruption." The investment team brings relevant experience, having previously backed representative companies including Kimi, Unitree, Galaxy General, Booster Robotics, and Sand.ai.
More specifically, they evaluate opportunities across three dimensions —
First, AI nativity. They look past superficial "AI+" branding to assess AI's substantive contribution to the business model, its transformative impact on user experience, and the team's depth of understanding of technological evolution.
Second, paradigm-breaking capability rather than incremental improvement — the ability to design products for the future outside existing frameworks, rather than patching up old systems.
Beyond business model and product, they also weigh founder mission. "Not starting a company just for the sake of starting a company — it's hard to go the distance otherwise."
The third point is particularly interesting. Under the AI wave, entrepreneurship has become fashionable, almost like a lifestyle choice for the forward-thinking. "Not starting a company just for the sake of starting a company" is not merely a criterion, but a warning.
To date, Source Code Rhythm has made several early-stage investments. Its first check went to Noyin Intelligence, a household embodied intelligence company founded by Yinchuan Li, formerly of Huawei. Another investment went to Kitar, a Southeast Asian secondhand e-commerce platform.
"The former represents a non-consensus technology frontier; the latter represents a paradigm shift in model-driven international expansion — exactly the kind of outsized opportunities we're seeking," Huang said.
Yi Cao, founding partner of Source Code Capital, stated that Source Code will continue supporting Source Code Rhythm with ecosystem resources and founder services. But the key point to emphasize is that Source Code Rhythm is now fully independent. As we understand it, while certain back-office functions remain partially shared with Source Code Capital, all are independently accounted for. Such spin-outs — new funds incubated within and then separated from major established firms — remain rare in China's VC industry.
Separately, elsewhere has learned that the new VC market has been notably vibrant over the past year, with a steady stream of new firm launches and fund closes. A number of strategically distinctive players have also emerged, such as Nebulon Ventures, which we previously covered. In the coming period, we will be profiling a series of new players in the fund industry.
For those interested in Huang and Source Code Rhythm, we recommend revisiting this interview.
Cover image: Generated
