Rongbao · August | Medical Firms Accelerate Clinical Trials; New Funding for Chip, Consumer, and Overseas Expansion Companies
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About Gaorong Post: Gaorong Post is a monthly digest curating noteworthy news and insights from Gaorong Ventures and its portfolio companies.
Each issue features ten items, covering not only important funding updates and milestones, but also emerging trends, new innovations, and fresh perspectives.
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Healthcare · Abogen Biosciences and Pulnovo Medical close new funding rounds
On August 19, Suzhou Abogen Biosciences Co., Ltd. announced the completion of its Series C funding round totaling over $700 million, with Gaorong Ventures participating.
Founded in early 2019, Abogen Biosciences is a clinical-stage innovative biopharmaceutical company focused on messenger RNA (mRNA) drug development, with industry-leading, proprietary mRNA and nano-delivery technology platforms. The company has built a robust pipeline spanning infectious disease prevention and tumor immunotherapy.
In June 2020, the company's novel coronavirus mRNA vaccine (ARCoV), developed jointly with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Walvax Biotechnology, received clinical trial approval from the National Medical Products Administration — becoming the first mRNA vaccine in China approved for clinical trials. The vaccine has since completed Phase I and Phase II studies and initiated Phase III trials.
Leveraging its self-developed mRNA technology platform, the company will accelerate clinical development of its COVID-19 vaccine series, expand other vaccine pipelines, enrich its existing oncology portfolio, and extend into additional therapeutic areas. It will also work to build out China's leading mRNA formulation R&D and large-scale manufacturing platform, laying a solid foundation for translating mRNA technology into broader pharmaceutical applications.
In August, Pulnovo Medical announced a new funding round exceeding RMB 100 million, with Gaorong Ventures participating. The proceeds will primarily fund full pipeline expansion and the launch of global multi-center clinical trials.
Founded in 2013, Pulnovo Medical is dedicated to treating pulmonary hypertension using radiofrequency ablation technology. The company's two core product lines — high-frequency ablation equipment and intravascular catheters — are both world firsts, protected by multiple domestic and international patents.
In early 2021, Pulnovo Medical's self-developed pulmonic radiofrequency ablation catheter for pulmonary hypertension received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation. The company had previously completed full patient enrollment for its PADN-CFDA clinical trial and continues to support follow-up visits and subsequent work at participating centers.
Going forward, Pulnovo Medical will gradually expand multi-center clinical trials globally to benefit more pulmonary hypertension patients.
Going Global · African fintech OPay closes $400 million Series C
Recently, African mobile payments company OPay announced the completion of a $400 million Series C round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from multiple new and existing shareholders. Gaorong Ventures, which co-led OPay's Series B in 2019, also participated in this round. OPay will use the new capital to strengthen its market position in Nigeria and Egypt and accelerate expansion into other countries across Africa and the Middle East.
"OPay will always stay true to its mission of improving financial efficiency in emerging markets through technological innovation, including AI," said Yahui Zhou, OPay's CEO. Over the past three years, OPay has grown rapidly to become one of the largest fintech companies in Africa and the Middle East. Through financial technology innovations in AI and bidding data, the company provides customers with offline payments, online payments, and digital wallet services. Since launching mobile payments in December 2018, OPay has continuously rolled out new features to provide convenient financial services for Africa's large unbanked population. The company now processes over $3 billion in monthly transaction volume.
New E-Commerce · Pinduoduo establishes RMB 10 billion agricultural technology initiative
In August, Pinduoduo announced the formal establishment of a RMB 10 billion agricultural technology initiative, with profits to be prioritized for this program. The "Billion-Yuan Agricultural Research Initiative" is not driven by commercial value or profit motives; rather, it aims to address major needs in agriculture and rural areas and advance agricultural technology.
" Agriculture and agricultural products touch everyone's daily lives, yet remain a relatively under-digitized sector," said Lei Chen, Pinduoduo's Chairman and CEO. "Many members of our team come from technical backgrounds, and we hope to contribute to agricultural modernization and rural revitalization through technology with this fund."
Previously, Pinduoduo partnered with China Agricultural University and Zhejiang University to launch the second "Duoduo Agricultural Technology Competition." In the recently concluded third "Agricultural Products Festival," Pinduoduo's "Billion-Yuan Subsidies" channel covered over 400 premium agricultural production regions.
With continued investment in agriculture, agricultural products have become the platform's fastest-growing category. In the first half of this year, Pinduoduo's agricultural and sideline product orders grew 431% year-over-year; over 4,000 SKUs exceeded 100,000 units sold, up more than 490%; and over 30 SKUs surpassed 1 million units sold.
On August 24, Pinduoduo released its Q2 2021 financial results. As of June 30, 2021, annual active buyers reached 849.9 million, with 26.1 million added in the quarter; average monthly active users hit 738.5 million. Revenue for the quarter was RMB 23 billion, up 89% year-over-year. Under U.S. GAAP, operating profit was RMB 2 billion, with net income attributable to ordinary shareholders of RMB 2.4 billion.
Smart Parking · AIPark receives strategic investment from Xiaomi
Recently, AIPark, a leading company in "city-level smart parking and static/dynamic traffic management," announced a strategic investment from Xiaomi. This investment will help advance business synergies between AIPark and Xiaomi's smart ecosystem across multiple scenarios. Gaorong Ventures first invested in AIPark in 2017 and led the company's Series C round in June 2020.
AIPark is committed to making cities better through artificial intelligence technology. Its pioneering city-level smart parking management solution integrates high-position video parking management technology, VSA (Vehicle State Awareness) technology, and AI Super Eye holographic perception technology — enabling city managers to comprehensively perceive the spatial-temporal state of vehicles across the urban transportation network, forming a city-level vehicle state awareness network. This has become a new form of AIoT infrastructure applied to integrated traffic governance, key security control, and municipal management.
Currently, AIPark's city-level smart parking solutions have been commercially deployed in nearly 30 cities including Beijing, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, Shijiazhuang, Shanghai, Tianjin, Fuzhou, Chengdu, and Shenzhen.
Semiconductors · Vertilite closes hundreds of millions of RMB in Series C3, accelerating automotive electronics expansion
Recently, Vertilite, a leading domestic VCSEL supplier based in Changzhou, completed a Series C3 round of hundreds of millions of RMB. Gaorong Ventures first invested in Vertilite's Series B in 2018 and has continued to participate in subsequent rounds.
Vertilite, founded in 2015, is an innovative optoelectronic semiconductor company dedicated to providing global customers with high-power and high-frequency VCSEL (Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser) solutions, primarily developing and producing VCSEL chips, devices, and modules. The company has established epitaxy and packaging/testing production lines in Changzhou, with epitaxy capacity currently at 1,000 6-inch wafers per month, expanding to 1,500 wafers per month next year.
In consumer electronics, Vertilite's products are widely used in Huawei, Honor, Sharp, and MEIZU smartphones thanks to leading performance and reliability. This year, the company is expanding into additional consumer scenarios, achieving mass delivery for robotic vacuum cleaners and smart door locks, with proximity sensor series reaching monthly chip deliveries in the millions.
Vertilite has also made breakthroughs in automotive electronics. VCSEL is considered the next-generation laser solution for the LiDAR industry, and Vertilite is actively collaborating with multiple top-tier domestic and international LiDAR manufacturers to develop next-generation hybrid solid-state and solid-state LiDAR solutions. Vertilite's VCSEL products are expected to achieve front-loading mass production in automotive electronics by end of 2021.
LiDAR · Innovusion closes $66 million Series B+, accelerating mass production
On August 13, global leading LiDAR manufacturer Innovusion announced $66 million in Series B+ funding. Gaorong Ventures led Innovusion's angel round in 2016 and participated in its Series A.
This round will primarily fund the mass production and delivery of LiDAR for NIO's ET7 sedan, as well as continued investment in Innovusion's self-developed technology innovation projects.
Founded in November 2016, Innovusion is dedicated to exploring and innovating in LiDAR. As the "eyes" of autonomous driving, LiDAR is core to achieving full autonomy; Innovusion builds its perception systems around this technology, with "seeing farther and clearer" as its product competitive advantage to meet customer needs. The company is actively collaborating with NIO and other automakers to usher in the era of LiDAR mass production.
Innovusion's founders and core R&D team hail from world-class institutions including Peking University, Tsinghua University, MIT, and UC Berkeley, with deep industry experience. The company maintains a research team in Silicon Valley, with its China operations centered in Suzhou High-Speed Rail New City covering East, North, and South China regions, and a manufacturing center in Wuhan's Auto Valley — combining leading R&D capabilities, exceptional safety assurance, and controllable costs.
AI Drug Discovery · Galixir closes new strategic funding round, applying AI to pharmaceutical R&D
On August 4, Galixir announced a new strategic funding round led by Shanghai AI Industry Investment Fund. Gaorong Ventures led Galixir's angel round in 2019 and has continued to invest in subsequent rounds.
Founded in 2019, Galixir is a company applying world-leading artificial intelligence technology to drug discovery. By combining cutting-edge AI algorithms with tools and expertise in computational chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and biology, Galixir has built a comprehensive preclinical drug discovery platform spanning target identification, candidate compound generation and screening, structural optimization, druggability and toxicity prediction, and patent analysis — compressing the traditional 4-7 year preclinical timeline to 12 months or less.
Galixir has established its drug discovery platform Pyxir™, which has been validated and achieved staged technical progress. In a challenging autoimmune target agonist design project where traditional computational chemistry methods had shown limited success, Galixir used its self-developed Pyxir™ platform to generate novel designs, identifying three high-activity compounds with entirely new scaffolds within one month.
Galixir's work in AI-enabled drug discovery has opened new pathways for pharmaceutical innovation, earning broad recognition from both industry and academia. The company has established partnerships with multiple multinational pharmaceutical companies, listed drugmakers, biotechnology firms, and research institutions at home and abroad, continuously exploring the frontiers of drug R&D.
New Brands · Chaotianmen Pier closes Pre-A round, building a Chongqing-flavored new consumption brand
Recently, Chongqing-flavored new consumption brand Chaotianmen Pier announced the completion of its Pre-A round, with Gaorong Ventures participating. The funding will primarily strengthen product R&D and data infrastructure, expand market presence, and begin extending upstream into the supply chain.
As a strategic new consumption brand under Chongqing Chaotianmen Catering Holding Group, Chaotianmen Pier builds standardized products around the intangible cultural heritage hot pot base recipe of the time-honored Chaotianmen Hot Pot brand — replicating the classic flavors validated by over 1,000 offline restaurants and long-standing consumer approval, bringing authentic Chongqing hot pot into homes everywhere.
Guided by the product philosophy of "authentic, delicious, convenient," Chaotianmen Pier has launched self-developed hot pot base and self-heating hot pot as flagship products, alongside derivative offerings including local Chongqing snacks and compound seasonings that showcase regional specialties. Leveraging the group's another offline sub-brand "Jiuyuan Snacks," Chaotianmen Pier will also introduce various cold-chain food products.
Semiconductors · Former AMD global VP Allen Lee joins Biren Technology
Recently, Biren Technology announced that Allen Lee (Li Xinrong) has joined as Co-CEO, focusing on organization, management, and product design. His appointment will further strengthen the company's team.
Founded in 2019, Biren Technology is dedicated to developing original general-purpose computing architectures, building efficient software and hardware platforms, and providing integrated solutions in intelligent computing.
With over 30 years of GPU experience, Allen Lee spent 15 years at AMD as Global VP and General Manager of China R&D Center. He noted that Biren Technology's vision for the semiconductor industry, particularly in high-performance and general-purpose computing technology and ecosystem integration, is industry-leading; and that the company has assembled top talent and mastered key core technologies.
"Building talent advantages is key to achieving industry leadership," said Wen Zhang, Biren Technology's founder and Chairman. The company now has over 500 employees, with its first product in final development stages and tape-out scheduled to begin in Q3 this year as planned.
Recognition · Gaorong Ventures wins multiple awards at Securities Times' 2021 China Venture Capital Golden Eagle Awards
On August 13, the "2021 China Venture Capital Golden Eagle Awards" hosted by Securities Times announced its winners. Gaorong Ventures was named "2021 VC Firm of the Year," as well as "Best VC Firm of the Year" in both AI and consumer sectors. Gaorong Ventures founding partner Chang Chen was named "Investor of the Year," founding partner Gao Xiang received "Best Investor in Big Data and Enterprise Services," and founding partner Yue Bin won "Best Investor in AI."
Separately, Huxiu and Baize Capital jointly released their investor rankings, recognizing annual MVIPs, top sector investors, and best firms. Gaorong Ventures was named best investment firm in consumer and digital healthcare; Yue Bin received "Best Tech Sector Investor"; and Gaorong Ventures partner Rui Han was named among "15 Most Valuable Young Investors" and "Best Consumer Sector Investor."
