Rongbao | Generative AI and medical device companies close new funding rounds, setting domestic records in their respective sectors

Setting funding speed records in their sectors, hitting industry-leading sales figures, pushing innovative tech and products to market, and taking the global stage... This month's Gaorong Ventures portfolio roundup gathers the energy and ambition of our portfolio companies blooming in early spring.

LiblibAI Raises Hundreds of Millions More, Charging Toward the World's Largest AI Content Creation and Consumption Platform

On February 24, AI image generation platform "LiblibAI" announced that it had completed four consecutive funding rounds within a single year. Following its disclosed funding in July 2024, the company secured another nine-figure RMB sum, setting a domestic record for funding speed in the AI application sector. The latest two rounds were led by Zhence Capital and Shunwei Capital. Gaorong Ventures had previously invested in LiblibAI's angel round in 2023.

Founded in May 2023, LiblibAI is dedicated to AI content creation and sharing, with the goal of fundamentally transforming how designers, illustrators, and self-media creators work — becoming a new AI-driven productive force for the creative content industry. Through its "open-source model ecosystem + modular tool flow" architecture, LiblibAI democratizes professional-grade AI capabilities for mass creative scenarios.

To date, the platform has surpassed 20 million model/image creators, maintains millions of daily creative interactions, hosts over 500,000 user-trained original AI models and workflows, and has generated more than 500 million images in total. LiblibAI is steadily advancing toward becoming the world's largest AI content creation and consumption platform. Read more

Pulnovo Medical Closes Nearly $100M Series C, Setting Asia-Pacific MedTech Funding Record

Recently, innovative medical device company Pulnovo Medical announced the completion of a nearly $100 million Series C round. The round was co-led by Qiming Venture Partners and existing investor Lilly Asia Ventures, with current investors OrbiMed and Gaorong Ventures making additional oversubscribed investments. Gaorong Ventures first invested in Pulnovo Medical in 2021 and has continued to double down in subsequent rounds.

Founded in 2013, Pulnovo Medical focuses on breakthrough therapies for pulmonary hypertension and heart failure. Its proprietary core technology and product line — the Percutaneous Pulmonary Artery Denervation (PADN) series of catheters and console — represents the world's first minimally invasive interventional therapy for pulmonary hypertension to receive approval first in China.

Currently, Pulnovo Medical has multiple ongoing clinical programs worldwide. In China, a large-scale registration clinical trial for chronic heart failure with Type 2 pulmonary hypertension is nearing completion in collaboration with over 30 top-tier tertiary hospitals. Supported by leading hospitals and research institutions across Europe and Asia, the international multicenter clinical study of PADN for chronic heart failure with Type 2 pulmonary hypertension is progressing smoothly, with enrolled and enrolling centers covering Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Serbia, Georgia, Singapore, Malaysia, and other countries. Meanwhile, two FDA global multicenter clinical trials are also set to launch in the United States. Read more

Cholesgen Completes 100M+ RMB Series A+, Developing Innovative Drugs Targeting Cholesterol Metabolism

Recently, Cholesgen announced the completion of a Series A+ round exceeding 100 million RMB, led by SDIC Venture Capital with continued follow-on investment from existing shareholder AstraZeneca-CICC Healthcare Industry Fund. Gaorong Ventures had previously led Cholesgen's Series A round in 2023.

Cholesgen is built on frontier research in glucose and lipid metabolism, focusing on highly druggable innovative targets in the cholesterol metabolism pathway to develop novel therapeutics for metabolic diseases including hyperlipidemia, obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis, and MASH.

The company's R&D programs originated from Academician Baoliang Song's laboratory. A veteran of more than two decades in metabolism research, Song is internationally recognized as an expert in glucose and lipid metabolism. Multiple academic findings from his team have been incorporated into classic higher-education textbooks, with extensive publications in top-tier journals including Nature, Science, and Cell. The core R&D team includes multiple "Mingzhu Elite" scholars, committed to the vision of "healthy metabolism, healthy cardiovascular system, healthy living," striving to provide treatment options for patients with metabolic diseases. Read more

Mingming Henmang Surpasses 55.5 Billion RMB in 2024 Retail Sales, Entering the Discount Snack 3.0 Era

On February 17, Mingming Henmang held its "2025 Savings Strategy Launch Event," unveiling private-label products, announcing dual-brand upgrades for Snack Busy and Zhao Yiming Snacks, and the full rollout of its 3.0 store format — marking the discount snack industry's entry into a "quality-price ratio"-centric 3.0 era.

According to figures disclosed at the event, Mingming Henmang's 2024 retail sales exceeded 55.5 billion RMB, with more than 15,000 stores in operation. Consulting firm Frost & Sullivan has certified Mingming Henmang as "China's Leading Snack Chain Brand," "No. 1 in Store Count Among National Snack Chains," and "No. 1 in Revenue Among National Snack Chains."

At the launch event, Mingming Henmang debuted six key private-label products and introduced 30 extended series items, which will gradually roll out to stores. The private-label portfolio spans Red Label and Gold Label tiers plus future sub-brands, catering to different consumer segments.

The 3.0 store format centers on "curated selection, fair pricing, convenient purchase," adding diversified categories including household goods, stationery and trendy toys, baked goods, and eggs. It also introduces fresh food and frozen product sections. By restructuring cost architecture with efficiency as the baseline and the customer at the center, Mingming Henmang aims to achieve total cost leadership and meet people's aspirations for a better life.

Blokees Debuts at New York Toy Fair, Brand Presence Reaches 114 Countries

In March, Chinese buildable character toy brand Blokees made its appearance at the New York Toy Fair in the United States. At the show, Blokees premiered its Minions Magic Edition Series 1 and Sesame Street Pals Magic Edition Series 2, while also displaying popular IP block figure products including Ultraman, Transformers, and Heroes Infinite.

To date, Blokees has secured non-exclusive licenses for over 50 globally renowned IPs including Ultraman, Transformers, Naruto, Marvel Infinity Saga, Marvel Spidey and His Amazing Friends, Minions, Pokémon, Sesame Street, Harry Potter, DC Superman, DC Batman, Saint Seiya, and Neon Genesis Evangelion. New block figure releases based on these licensed IPs will continue to roll out.

Backed by strong R&D capabilities and an innovative product system, Blokees follows a "all demographics, all price points, global reach" strategic direction. From Singapore Comic Con to Nuremberg Toy Fair and New York International Toy Fair, the company is steadily advancing its globalization. Currently, Blokees' sales network extensively covers key regions including the United States, Southeast Asia, and Europe. On the marketing front, the brand's overseas social media following has surpassed one million, with brand influence extending to 114 countries.

DeepSeek-R1 Launches on Biren AI Computing Platform, Full Model Series Empowering Developers

On February 5, Biren AI Computing Platform officially launched DeepSeek-R1 distilled model inference services, enabling developers worldwide to experience the full model series in the cloud. The service offers two core advantages: 1) Zero deployment cost: eliminating hardware procurement and environment setup for an "out-of-the-box" cloud inference experience; 2) Multi-scenario coverage: pre-configured optimization profiles for different tasks including LLMs.

Leveraging the outstanding compatibility of Biren Technology's self-developed Bili™ series products, the platform completed support for the full DeepSeek-R1 distilled model series within mere hours — covering parameter scales from 1.5B to 70B, including both LLaMA-distilled and Qwen-distilled models — thereby providing developers with high-performance, low-cost large model deployment and development solutions. This also makes Biren Technology one of the few chip platforms to achieve efficient synchronous adaptation of both international and domestic models, demonstrating domestic chips' capability to handle complex AI application workloads.

In early March, Biren Technology further announced that through eight self-developed innovative technologies, it has achieved efficient full-stack training and inference of the full DeepSeek-V3 model on domestic GPU platforms, further enhancing its integrated hardware-software, out-of-the-box product capabilities and supporting customers in leveraging DeepSeek's new productive forces for business innovation.

ESWIN Computing RISC-V AI SoC Adapts

DeepSeek Model with Large Capacity, High Bandwidth

In February, ESWIN Computing successfully completed DeepSeek model adaptation on EVB development boards powered by its self-developed RISC-V AI SoC EIC77 series chips — the EIC7700X and EIC7702X.

The EIC7700X/7702X integrate NPU, GPU, DSP and other hardware acceleration modules, equipped with large-capacity, high-bandwidth LPDDR5 memory to ensure full utilization of hardware resources when processing DeepSeek's large-scale models, enabling rapid parameter transfer and significantly boosting inference efficiency.

Test results showed that when running the 7B parameter DeepSeek-distill-qwen model, the EIC7700X-powered EVB development board achieved inference speeds of 7 tokens/s, while the EIC7702X-powered board reached 14 tokens/s — demonstrating energy efficiency far exceeding comparable architectures.

Beyond development boards, the EIC77 series encompasses multiple product forms including AI BOX, AI PC, and server accelerator cards, applicable to cloud, edge, and endpoint scenarios for multi-dimensional AI processing.

Haijieya Medical's Original

Flexible RF Ablation Electrode Needle Hits Market

On February 12, Haijieya Medical announced that its original product EPEE™ single-use radiofrequency ablation electrode needles — including both standard and flexible variants — received approval from China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), marking a new addition to the company's percutaneous puncture product matrix for minimally invasive tumor treatment.

The EPEE™ series standard needle achieves maximum ablation ranges up to 4cm; its nanoscale hydrophilic coating effectively reduces puncture resistance and prevents tissue adhesion; the original flexible needle is designed to overcome spatial constraints under CT guidance; and the coaxial puncture-ablation design reduces puncture operations and prevents seeding metastasis.

During the 2025 Spring Festival, Haijieya's self-developed Cryoablation & Radiofrequency Combined Ablation System (Kangbo Knife) officially received FDA clearance, marking a new milestone for Chinese high-end medical devices on the global stage. The system is already commercially deployed in over ten countries and regions worldwide, with indications covering liver, lung, kidney, breast, prostate, and other tumor sites. Previously, the Kangbo Knife had received NMPA innovative medical device review, FDA Breakthrough Device designation, and European CE certification.

Huayi Lejian's GS1191-0445 Enters

Multicenter Phase III Clinical Trial

Recently, gene therapy innovator Huayi Lejian reached agreement with the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE, NMPA) on the Phase III clinical trial protocol for its self-developed GS1191-0445 injection, marking the drug's formal entry into Phase III trials.

GS1191-0445 injection is an adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy drug candidate for Hemophilia A. Through single-dose intravenous infusion, the drug delivers the human coagulation factor FⅧ gene into Hemophilia A patients, aiming to increase and maintain coagulation factor levels long-term to achieve "one-time administration, long-term efficacy" causal treatment and bleeding prevention.

GS1191-0445 is the first AAV gene therapy drug for Hemophilia A to enter clinical trials in China. An investigator-initiated study launched in 2021; Phase I approval — China's first for Hemophilia A gene therapy — came in January 2023, with first patient dosing in August 2023. In December 2023, the drug received FDA Orphan Drug designation.

Hicosen Bio's HC016 Lipid Complex

Injection Scores Dual China-US IND Approval

On March 4, Hicosen Bio's self-developed HC016 lipid complex injection — the world's first TLR9 agonist based on lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery technology — formally received clinical trial (IND) approval from China's NMPA. The drug had previously received FDA IND approval on January 18, 2025. With this, HC016 becomes China's first LNP-delivered TLR9 agonist project to achieve dual China-US filing and approval, marking this breakthrough tumor immunotherapy's entry into global synchronized development and offering a novel solution for solid tumor treatment.

HC016 is a small nucleic acid drug developed on Hicosen Bio's proprietary QTsome™ delivery platform. Its innovation lies in LNP-targeted delivery of a novel TLR9 agonist to activate multi-dimensional anti-tumor immune responses through T cells, macrophages, and NK cells, while leveraging circulating memory immune cells to establish persistent surveillance and clearance mechanisms for distant metastases.

Previously, based on significant tumor regression rates, metastasis inhibition, and safety data from preclinical studies, this drug became the world's first LNP-delivered TLR9 agonist project to pass FDA review.

Style3D Releases Studio V8.0

Another AI+3D Milestone

Nothing Phone (3a) &

Phone (3a) Pro Make Their Debut

Online Seminar: DeepSeek and Open Source

Impact on AI Applications and Industry Chain

This Spring Festival, DeepSeek detonated the global AI community. Discussions about its technical innovations, open vs. closed source, training costs and paradigms proliferated. Beyond that, we're focused on what AI application layers and vertical scenarios can actually accomplish based on models like DeepSeek-R1. Can LLM + reinforcement learning unlock application explosions across more domains — even paths toward AGI?

At the end of February, Ronghui (Gaorong's community platform) invited founders and AI application developers from fields including AI interactive content, AI+travel, AI+financial research, AI+healthcare, and AI coding to discuss online the impact of DeepSeek-R1 on AI application layers and various vertical scenarios.