Linear Capital｜Linear Path, Nonlinear Growth

线性资本·October 28, 2024

We strive to be the best Data Intelligence Technology Fund in China.

About Linear

Linear Capital focuses on investing in the space of "frontier technology + industry", that is, frontier technology represented by data intelligence, next-generation infrastructure, next-generation robot technology, and technological transformations of traditional industries such as biomedicine, materials, energy, etc. Frontier technology is applied to various verticals to significantly improve industry productivity, solve the pain points, complete industry upgrading, and achieve attractive returns by substantially increasing industry value. Linear Capital persists in investing in the early stage and continuing to provide support throughout the investment life cycle. At present, Linear Capital is managing ten funds with a total AUM of about US$2 billion. Linear Capital has invested in the early stage of more than 120 entrepreneurial teams including Horizon Robotics, Kujiale, Sensors Data, Tezign, Agile Robots, Thinking Data, Rokid, Guanyuan Data, Tophant, etc. The total valuation of Linear Capital's portfolio companies is estimated to be about US$20 billion.

Harry Wang

Founder & CEO

Facebook's second Chinese engineer and first R&D manager. He used to work on the backend of News Feed and Social Ads, the frontend of virtual currency and the pipeline of payment security & backend. He served as a CEO advisor in Dianping.com, Baixing.com and CSDN. Harry was also the writer of the bestseller, Building up Facebook. Harry owns Stanford's MS&E degree and Zhejiang University's bachelor degree of computer science. Harry is a Fellow of the third class of the China Fellowship Program and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and Young Global Leader, Class of 2018, World Economic Forum.

Neil Zeng

Partner

Neil served as Partner at Future Capital Discovery Fund. He has over 15 years of experience in operations, finance, and investments.

Prior to joining, he worked at Goldman Sachs' London office, Bosch Group, and served as the Vice President of ChinaCache (NSDQ: CCIH) responsible for corporate M&A. He received a BA from the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics and earned a Masters' Degree from the University of Surrey. He is fluent in Chinese, English, and Japanese.

Songyan Huang

Partner

Dr. Huang focuses on investments in the areas of data intelligence reconstruction of supply side, robotics, and chips. Reviewer for several top journals of IEEE. He worked at Huawei as a data scientist and was in charge of several advanced research and application development projects. Dr. Huang graduated from Zhejiang University with a background in machine learning research, and got an excellent PhD from Zhejiang University. Songyan was awarded as "36 best investors under age 36" by 36kr, "40 best investors under age 40" by CYzone, and "Top 20 technology investors" by JazzYear.

Can Zheng

Managing Director

As a member of the Accelerated Leadership Program at TCS, Can worked across business development, consulting, and new service introduction for major US banks and telecom providers. He was also a founding member of Morgan Stanley's China IT team, where he led development of post-trading platforms for multiple Asian markets. Can holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, a master's in Computer Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a bachelor's in Computer Science from Zhejiang University.

Ben Li

CFO & COO

Before joining Linear Capital, Ben spent eight years at Ernst & Young as a Senior Manager, focusing on transaction advisory services including due diligence, deal structuring, and tax planning. He graduated from the Department of International Finance at Fudan University.

Zeren Bai

Senior Principal

Zeren focuses on next-generation computation-driven applications and currently invests in AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). He has led Linear Capital's investments in Baoxiaohao, Aikeno, Woshi, and Baixiniu.

Previously, Zeren worked as an AI researcher and developer at Tencent's Cloud and Smart Industries Group, with extensive project experience applying cutting-edge technologies — computer vision, natural language processing, big data, and machine learning — across various industries. He holds two AI-related patents in China. Zeren earned a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Tongji University and a master's in Applied Analytics from Columbia University, where his team won the IBM Data & Analytics Challenge.

Wei Xin

Principal

Wei Xin focuses on deep tech, particularly robotics, smart manufacturing, and software-hardware integration. He previously worked as a lead engineer at Microsat, an institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he was responsible for satellite attitude and orbit control. Wei Xin holds a bachelor's and master's in Mechatronic Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology and an MBA from SAIF.

Tianyi Zhou

Principal

Tianyi is passionate about interdisciplinary scientific advances that could dramatically increase productivity in chemistry, new materials, and biology.

Before Linear, he worked at a government-backed VC in Suzhou, focusing on new materials and biotechnology investments.

Tianyi graduated with first-class honors in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and conducted research on gold nanoparticles in the Mirkin Group at Northwestern University. He was also awarded an honorary master's degree from Cambridge.

Yifei Li

Principal

Yifei Li

Principal at Linear Capital, focusing on advanced technologies in new energy and new materials. Prior to Linear, Yifei worked as a battery expert at NIO, responsible for developing new battery platforms and exploring new materials applications in EVs. Before NIO, he was a principal investigator at a startup, leading R&D, scale-up, and commercialization of aqueous lithium/sodium-ion batteries and related materials for energy storage systems. Yifei also has experience working in the EV cell department at CATL. He holds a bachelor's degree in materials physics from Wuhan University and a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of Houston. He has published more than 10 top-tier SCI papers and filed more than 20 patents in related fields.

Haitao Hu

Data Analyst

Haitao Hu

Data Analyst at Linear Capital, joined in 2024, mainly focusing on industry analysis in artificial intelligence.

Grace Zou

Legal Manager

Grace joined Linear Capital as Legal Manager in 2021. Previously, she spent many years at a leading law firm focusing on private equity and investment funds, capital markets, and securities. Grace holds a bachelor's degree in law and a double degree in economics, both from Peking University. She has passed the PRC national judicial examination.

Cherie Qian

Legal Manager

Legal Manager at Linear Capital. Responsible for legal matters of the fund. Before joining Linear Capital, Cherie worked at Global Law Office and Shihui Partners for more than five years, focusing on VC/PE, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate law. Cherie graduated from the law school of Nanjing University.

Franny Zhong

Finance Manager

Before joining Linear, Franny worked as a finance manager at a subsidiary of CICC Capital, responsible for managing the financial operations of the management company and its funds. She also worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as a senior auditor, focusing on audits of private equity funds under PRC and US GAAP.

Franny graduated from the School of Accounting at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

Kalyn Lu

Senior Finance Specialist

Kalyn joined Linear Capital in 2022. Before Linear, she worked at YF Capital, responsible for fund financial operations and portfolio valuation. Kalyn also worked as an auditor at Ernst & Young and has experience at PE/VC and securities firms.

Kalyn graduated from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

Jessica Zhou

Admin Manager

Before joining Linear Capital, Jessica served as a meeting specialist at Suning Commerce Group, responsible for arranging and coordinating internal executive meetings and shareholders' meetings, as well as planning and hosting reception meetings for all business divisions.

After that, Xiang worked at Wizwork as administrative director, responsible for collecting client files, fee collection, customer communication, maintenance, and other tasks to ensure stable project operations.

Helen He

Vice President

Prior to joining Linear Capital, Helen worked at several well-known companies across the internet and financial industries, including Google China, China International Capital Corporation (CICC), Wandoujia, Zhubajie.com, and ZhongAn Insurance. Having experienced rapid growth periods at some startups, she also served as an HR business partner helping teams achieve continued growth at mature companies. She is experienced in recruitment and team management. Helen graduated from Beijing Language and Culture University. She loves food, travel, dance, and more.

Ronghui Li

Vice President

Ronghui Li joined Linear Capital in 2020 and is responsible for the firm's branding and PR, as well as portfolio company branding and PR. Ronghui has more than eight years of experience, having worked as a content editor at QingMang and as a Silicon Valley–based reporter at YiMagazine, focusing on stories about technology companies and startups. Ronghui holds a master's degree in journalism from Renmin University of China.

Joseph Zhang

Investor Relations

Before joining Linear Capital, Joseph worked as an investment analyst at DUMAC (Duke University Management Company), investing in private equity and venture capital funds worldwide. Joseph graduated summa cum laude from Duke University with a double major in economics and statistics. At Duke, he served as president of the Duke University Chinese Students and Scholars Association.

Michael Ling

Managing Director

Michael joined Linear Capital in 2023, focusing on developing our international business and relationships and supporting portfolio companies' global expansion. Prior to joining Linear Capital, Michael was with Jeneration Group, a leading multi-family office investment platform focused on Asia growth investments and multi-asset investments globally. Before that, he was with CDH Investments, a leading private equity and alternative investment manager, helping build out its multi-asset alternative investment platform. Michael started his career in New York with Bear Stearns and then JPMorgan in its investment banking division and private equity business. He was also with Guggenheim Partners' principal investment and private equity business before moving back to Asia. Michael graduated with high distinction from Indiana University Bloomington with a Bachelor of Science.

Our LPs

Among the long-term investors we work closely with are top asset management companies and professional investment institutions and fund-of-funds in Asia, leading sovereign wealth funds, world-class university endowments, leading enterprises across multiple sectors, founders of established technology startups in China and around the world, as well as market-oriented fund-of-funds and other Chinese and international family offices. We leverage our professional expertise and industry resources to help our portfolio companies move fast and break fewer things, pursuing "Linear Path and Nonlinear Growth."

Location

We are based in Shanghai and Beijing, but we also travel around China from time to time, wherever the opportunities are.

Covered Sectors

Investment Stage

Our initial investment stage focuses on Series Angel (~30%), Series Pre-A (~60%) and Series A (~10%). We come in early and support for long. For each single dollar we initially invest, we are well prepared to make follow-on investment in the long run. We make selective long-term heavy bets.

Check Size

We can invest US$1~~10M (or equivalent RMB) as initial investment. Our sweetest spot of check size is at US$3~~8M as lead investor.

Post-investment Service

Key Moment Advising: to participate in key discussions during core product iteration, market expansion, or commercialization, e.g. the construction of Dianping.com's data platform framework, and commercialization suggestions for FraudMetrix and Sensors Data.
Key Position Hiring: to help recruit key positions (Director or above). For example, we help Horizon Robotics recruit CTO, help Tezign hire senior technology VP, help Dianping.com interview and recruit engineering director, etc.
Key Round Financing: to help companies complete the next 1-2 rounds of financing. E.g., we managed to help Guandata, Sensors Data, FraudMetrix, Tezign, etc. complete the subsequent rounds with reputational investors. We maintain close contact with the best 30+ fund partners in China, deeply participate in and facilitate the subsequent rounds.
Key Client Conversion: to help enterprises connect with appropriate customer resources, get to establish and gradually convert into business cooperation. For instance, we organized Linear-Starbucks Day and Linear-Honeywell Tour, and help around 10 portfolio companies to connect with business giants and give rise to several successful POCs and business orders.
Key Moment Branding: to utilize Linear's external channel to help the enterprises establish market branding with industry influence, success stories, award information and etc., so as to create positive impacts in the process of financing, business development, and talent recruitment.

Some Cases

Horizon Robotics

WeChat@地平线HorizonRobotics