Boyu Hu

Boyu Hu is the founder and partner of XVC, a Chinese early-stage venture capital firm he established in 2016 . Before founding XVC, he spent roughly a decade as an investor and another decade as an entrepreneur; he began investing in 2009 and later told 暗涌Waves that his first 10 investments before 2016 returned approximately 400x, generating nearly ten billion dollars . The firm's name, XVC, was chosen to evoke an independent variable "X" — the idea of thinking independently .

Hu describes his investment approach as "sniper" style: concentrating heavy bets at early stages rather than spraying across many deals . His largest single commitment to date has been Chagee (霸王茶姬), where XVC invested over 100 million RMB in the first round and has since added another round, building a stake approaching 20%; Hu once remarked that a single IPO from that company could return roughly twice XVC's entire historical invested capital . Other portfolio companies he has publicly referenced include Yup, Yuanding, and Laifen .

His thinking on the investment environment shifted after the 2019 collapse of portfolio company Dai Luobo (呆萝卜), which he described as a shock that made him "clearly aware" of how China's venture landscape had changed — from wars decided by network effects to prolonged campaigns where "human decision-making ability and organizational ability" become decisive variables . Following that, XVC adjusted its approach to weight "the person" more heavily in decisions .

In a 2025 conversation with fellow investors, Hu framed his two-decade career in venture and entrepreneurship as fundamentally a way of combating "boredom and loneliness" by working alongside people of quality and shared values on things of lasting meaning .