Brain-Computer Interfaces, XR Chips Close Funding Rounds as New Products and Markets Open Fresh Chapters | Rongbao · October

In a radically new growth environment, entrepreneurs who stand out need an open mindset to embrace new technologies, the discipline to protect their core business, and the ability to build foundational capabilities for long-term success. In this issue of the Rongbao newsletter, we round up the concrete steps our portfolio companies have taken toward their visions.

Oct

News

J&T Express Lists on Hong Kong Stock Exchange Main Board A Solid Step Toward Becoming a Global Logistics Leader

On October 27, J&T Express, a global logistics service operator, listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (stock code: 01519.HK). This Hong Kong IPO marks a solid step forward in J&T Express's journey to become a global logistics leader.

Founded in Indonesia in 2015, J&T Express rapidly expanded to six other Southeast Asian countries and entered the China market in 2020. According to Frost & Sullivan, by parcel volume in 2022, J&T Express ranked as the #1 express operator in Southeast Asia and among the top players by market share in China.

In 2022, building on strong growth momentum in China and Southeast Asia, J&T Express further expanded its express delivery business to five countries across Latin America, the Middle East, and North Africa. Today, J&T Express's delivery network covers 13 countries worldwide.

Guided by its mission of "customer-centricity and efficiency as the foundation," J&T Express is committed to providing full-scenario logistics solutions through intelligent infrastructure and digital logistics networks — efficiently connecting the world and making logistics accessible globally.

GravityXR Closes Hundreds of Millions of RMB in Series A Funding Advancing "XR Spatial Computing" Dedicated Chips

Recently, GravityXR, an XR spatial computing chip design company, completed a Series A financing round of several hundred million RMB, led by Monolith with participation from multiple new and existing investors. Gaorong Ventures had led GravityXR's angel round in 2021 and continued to participate in its Pre-A round. Since its founding in September 2021, the company has completed four financing rounds in total.

GravityXR focuses on developing dedicated chips and related components for XR devices (AR glasses/VR headsets/MR headsets), aiming to provide a complete next-generation XR spatial computing technology solution — with core chips as the vehicle, supported by hardware technology and algorithms.

GravityXR is dedicated to building chips that deliver the ultimate XR experience, with targeted performance optimization for XR-specific components (displays, perception sensors, etc.), enabling low-latency real-time 4K and 120Hz image rendering, sensor data processing, and mixed reality interaction. Its self-developed algorithms not only reduce motion sickness from image content, provide image correction capabilities, and enhance display quality, but also enable entirely new interaction modes for devices.

Before taping out its chip, GravityXR collaborated with major industry players to develop a system-level testing platform. This partnership enabled early validation of the chip's algorithms and architecture, demonstration of partial chip function integration and real-time VST effects, and showcase of data connectivity capabilities with the main chip. Read more

NeuroXess Completes Angel+ Round Advancing Fully Implantable Medical-Grade Brain-Computer Interface System

Recently, NeuroXess announced the completion of a tens-of-millions RMB angel+ round, led by Gaorong Ventures. The company had previously completed a tens-of-millions RMB angel round earlier this year.

Founded in 2019, NeuroXess is a startup targeting the full-stack R&D of medical-grade implantable wireless brain-computer interfaces. Its founding team has over twenty years of international research experience in fundamental research, engineering practice, and clinical medicine of implantable brain-computer interfaces, with deep understanding of BCI principles and clinical applications.

NeuroXess is currently the only team in China capable of independently developing brain-computer therapies and completing targeted solutions. Its R&D team was the first in China to propose an implantable brain-computer interface solution based on high-density flexible electrode arrays on the brain cortical surface.

Currently, NeuroXess has essentially completed the full-stack basic hardware and software system R&D for brain-computer interfaces. On the hardware side, key core components include high-density ultra-compliant neural sensor arrays, integrated acquisition-and-stimulation closed-loop neural electronic chips, thousand-channel miniaturized brain-computer information interaction devices, and wireless brain information transceivers. On the software side, this includes preprocessing algorithms, decoding analysis algorithms, and brain-inspired control algorithms. For commercialization, NeuroXess spans multiple specific research and clinical application scenarios, with multiple BCI products nearing systematic completion of R&D and planned for market launch in the near term. Read more

Oct

By the Numbers

Inaugural Carbon Exploration Day Held at WeView's Zhuhai Super-G Factory New-Generation Zinc-Iron Flow Battery Product GP110 Unveiled

On October 26, WeView hosted "Carbon Exploration Day" at its "Super-G Factory" in Zhuhai, Guangdong. With themes of green, low-carbon, and intelligent manufacturing, the event gathered energy sector experts nationwide and leading energy storage industry chain representatives, aspiring to become a representative Chinese green industry event.

At the conference, Ge Qun, co-founder and chairman of WeView, proposed a "Moore's Law" for the energy storage industry — hoping that through collective industry effort, the cost per kWh of energy storage could drop to 0.2 RMB within three years. He noted that reducing energy storage costs per kWh is key to improving the economics of new energy and strengthening the market viability of renewable clean energy sources like wind and solar.

At Carbon Exploration Day, WeView unveiled its new-generation zinc-iron flow battery product GP110. The battery uses an alkaline aqueous electrolyte formula that is non-flammable, non-explosive, safe, and non-toxic, with features of extreme safety and long lifespan. Its raw materials are abundant, affordable, and easily obtainable, offering significant cost advantages and room for cost reduction. Additionally, due to the decoupled characteristic where power modules and energy modules can be scaled independently, zinc-iron flow batteries can flexibly adjust system scale and storage duration on demand, with a service life of up to 25 years, over 30,000 charge-discharge cycles at 100% DOD (100% depth of discharge), and are unaffected by geographic environment — offering flexible siting and easy deployment advantages that can fully empower multi-scenario needs of energy storage system integrators, wind and solar power stations, data centers, 5G base stations, and other end users.

Currently, flow batteries have entered the gigawatt era. WeView's "Super-G Factory" has announced production startup with annual capacity exceeding 6 GWh, making it the world's first gigawatt-level factory in the flow battery industry to commence production — marking the industry's massive leap from megawatt-level to gigawatt-level capacity.

First Rox 01 Production Vehicle Rolls Off Qingdao Factory Line Deliveries to Begin Mid-November

On October 21, the first Rox 01 production vehicle rolled off the line at the Qingdao factory. Since its launch on August 22, the Rox 01 — as the first model from Rox Motor, positioned for "setting out toward mountains and seas" and "making long-distance overlanding the top choice" — has received an enthusiastic market response. The rollout of the first Rox 01 production vehicle, with its mature and advanced fully automated production processes and rigorous quality system, marks a key step toward final customer delivery.

The Rox 01 represents the successful embodiment of LuoKe Intelligent's technology empowerment at Beijing Automobile Works. With its all-new advanced production line, the Rox 01 showcases automotive manufacturing processes for lightweight, intelligent, and premium new products. Rox Motor has built its factory to full Industry 4.0 standards, with complete vehicle R&D capabilities, design capabilities, and supply chain management capabilities.

Rox 01 production vehicles will officially begin delivery to customers in mid-November 2023. With excellent passability, multi-scenario intelligent overlanding modes, and comfortable driving experience, Rox Motor has become the top choice for new energy long-distance overlanding, fulfilling people's aspirations for a better life.

GalaxySpace Achieves China's First Terminal-to-Terminal Low-Earth Orbit Satellite Communication Test

Recently, GalaxySpace successfully achieved China's first terminal-to-terminal (T2T) low-earth orbit satellite communication test on its Lingxi-03 satellite. Launched on July 23, 2023 from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, this satellite is China's first low-earth orbit broadband communications satellite using flexible solar arrays.

This terminal-to-terminal LEO satellite communication test refers to direct communication between satellite ground terminals through switching equipment on the satellite, without data relay through ground gateway stations. In this operating mode, communication latency can be reduced by 50%, while also improving overall system flexibility and availability. The significance of this test lies in providing a more flexible communication mode for satellite communications. In remote areas such as the polar regions and open ocean, satellite communication is possible even without gateway station coverage.

The digital payload aboard GalaxySpace's Lingxi-03 satellite — from phased array antennas to digital hardware units and digital signal processing software — was fully self-developed by GalaxySpace, with hardware achieving significant optimization in weight, volume, size, and functionality.

Going forward, GalaxySpace will further validate next-generation low-earth orbit broadband satellite communication technologies in orbit, including on-satellite switching and signaling beams, continuously exploring new application modes for communications satellites and providing technical support for China's satellite internet construction.

XVERSE Open-Sources 65-Billion-Parameter High-Performance Foundation Model Unconditionally Free for Commercial Use

On November 6, XVERSE announced the open-source release of XVERSE-65B, a 65-billion-parameter high-performance general foundation model, unconditionally free for commercial use — a first in the industry. Its 13B model was also fully upgraded, raising the capability ceiling for "small" models. This will enable massive numbers of SMEs, researchers, and AI developers to achieve "foundation model freedom" one step earlier — freely using, modifying, or distilling XVERSE's models according to their computing power, resource constraints, and specific task requirements, driving breakthrough innovation in research and applications.

XVERSE maintains its "high-performance" positioning, significantly enhancing three aspects of the 65B model: First, from foundational capabilities in understanding, generation, reasoning, and memory, to the model's diversity, creativity, and precision — achieving a leap from excellent to powerful; second, expanding capabilities in tool use, code interpretation, and reflective self-correction, laying the technical foundation for building AI agents and improving practical utility; third, significantly mitigating hallucination issues common and potentially severe in 7B and 13B models, improving accuracy and professionalism.

65B aims to create triple value for research, business, and ecosystem. For R&D, 65B will provide "great leverage" for new technologies, new tools, performance optimization, and model safety — allowing the community to rapidly accumulate experience and helping advance the long-term goal of national technological self-reliance. For business, massive numbers of SMEs can access "great tools" at zero cost, breaking through limitations to drive significant application innovation. For developer ecosystem, the community can fully leverage organizational synergies to drive a "Cambrian explosion" in R&D and applications.

XVERSE also provides comprehensive technical services including model training, inference, deployment, and fine-tuning, empowering industries from entertainment to finance to healthcare — helping build industry-leading user experiences across scenarios including intelligent customer service, creative writing, and precision recommendation.

Download XVERSE models for free: Search "XVERSE" on GitHub/Hugging Face/ModelScope

XTransfer Launches "AI Employee" Accelerating CRM Digital Intelligence

Recently, XTransfer, a leading Chinese B2B cross-border trade payment company, officially launched the foreign trade industry's first "AI intelligent agent" service — "AI Employee." This follows the launch of "AI Letter Writing" on XTransfer's foreign trade customer management platform Ancheng CRM in May this year, representing another major application of deep AI integration with the foreign trade industry.

"AI Employee" will focus on enhancing intelligent experiences for foreign trade enterprises in marketing, customer acquisition, and user management — helping millions of foreign trade enterprises capture the technology dividends of the AI era.

Currently, "AI Employee" covers role capabilities in customer acquisition and marketing. Once a foreign trade business owner sets work goals for the "AI Employee," it can analyze tasks, develop plans, and autonomously access customer management tools on the Ancheng CRM platform. Additionally, after completing target work, the "AI Employee" will provide summary reports, with all work records fully documented in the Ancheng CRM system. This greatly improves operational efficiency for foreign trade enterprises, allowing salespeople to focus more energy on converting prospective leads into orders.

Mirxes Launches Comprehensive Gene Sequencing Service COMPASS Covering Multiple Cancer Types and Treatment Options

Mirxes recently launched COMPASS, a comprehensive gene sequencing service for Southeast Asia, at an event in Singapore. This service achieves deep sequencing of 1,021 genes through next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology, enabling personalized treatment for multiple cancer types.

COMPASS has the capability to detect multiple cancer types, including non-small cell lung cancer, gastrointestinal stromal tumors, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and cholangiocarcinoma, with broad coverage. Through deep sequencing, COMPASS can provide information on tumor mutational burden (TMB) and microsatellite instability (MSI), guiding immunotherapy and further expanding treatment option selection.

Additionally, COMPASS covers 97 FDA-approved targeted therapies, 11 hormone therapies, and 63 therapies in clinical trials. This information can help doctors select the most suitable treatment for patients, improving treatment efficacy while providing patients with more treatment choices.

Notably, from sample receipt to report delivery, COMPASS can be completed in just 10 days — securing earlier treatment opportunities for patients and improving treatment outcomes and quality of life.

Oct

Horizons

Innovusion LiDAR Powers China's First "Smart Highway" Enabling L4-Level Autonomous Driving

Snack Busy 2023 Snack Carnival National Store Count Surpasses 4,000

Oct

Recognition

In October, Cyzone released its 2023 Most Admired Venture Capital Institutions list, with Gaorong Ventures ranking among the Top 10 Most Admired VC Firms and Top 10 VC Firms in the Overseas Ecosystem. The Venture Capital Journal, an authoritative global VC publication, released its 2023 VCJ 50 list, with Gaorong Ventures making the ranking.

Oct

Ronghui

Ronghui 2023 Growth Workshop

Recently, Gaorong Ventures Ronghui and Amazon Web Services jointly launched the 2023 Growth Workshop, conducting practical sharing and discussions with entrepreneurs around topics including product-led growth, community-empowered brand growth, global go-to-market, and AI-driven growth.

In the product-led growth module, Gaorong Ventures investment partner Huaxin Liu, Lark VP of Product Junyuan Qi, and three CEOs from ToDesk, Zixun Technology, and Yunzhongzi Technology jointly discussed "product-led growth (PLG)" in the AI era. Read more

In the community-empowered brand growth module, over 40 consumer brands across beauty, digital, footwear and apparel, and food and beverage sectors visited Dewu (Poizon)'s Shanghai headquarters to deeply understand young consumers' spending philosophy and preferences, and practically discuss how brands can embrace youth power on Dewu and drive new growth.