Heart Capital Leads Series A Investment in Baichuan, Continues AI Sector Bet | HeartStar PORTFOLIO

On July 25, Chinese large model unicorn Baichuan confirmed the completion of its Series A funding round, raising a total of 5 billion RMB, and will kick off its Series B at a 20 billion RMB valuation.

Heart Capital participated in Baichuan's A1 round, alongside Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, and other tech giants as well as multiple top-tier investment institutions. According to the disclosed information for this round, in addition to the above, Baichuan also received investment from state-backed industry funds including the Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, Shanghai AI Industry Investment Fund, and Shenzhen Capital Group.

Yan Han, Founding Partner of Heart Capital, stated: "We're thrilled to be an investor in Baichuan's Series A. In just over a year since its founding, the company's model iteration speed has been remarkable — a testament to the exceptional leadership of Chuan Wang and Liyun Ru. Heart Capital continues to build out its AI investments and maintains a long-term bullish view on the industry's development. We understand that progress in artificial intelligence is a protracted war. While continuously breaking new ground in data, technology, and applications, it requires patience and a long-term perspective. We believe Baichuan will leverage its expertise and innovative capacity to lead China's AI industry."

Baichuan has consistently pursued a dual-engine development strategy of "super model + super app." Since releasing its first open-source, commercially available large model Baichuan-7B last June, the company has launched 12 large models to date.

In May of this year, Baichuan introduced its first AI assistant, Baixiaoying. The assistant features multi-step search and intelligent targeted search capabilities, solving user problems through a series of questions — addressing cases where users struggle to articulate their needs clearly, or when queries are too vague or abstract.

Additionally, Baichuan has long viewed healthcare as "the jewel in the crown of large models" and the optimal scenario for building super apps. As the only leading large model company in China focused exclusively on healthcare, Baichuan has made阶段性 progress in both AI medical technology and applications. Its self-developed general medical-enhanced large model has surpassed GPT-4 on multiple authoritative benchmarks, and at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in early July, the company debuted its AI healthcare application — AI Health Advisor — for the first time. The app functions like a veteran general practitioner, engaging in continuous dialogue with users to gather sufficient symptom information before making a comprehensive assessment, delivering diagnostic results and medication recommendations.

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Founded in 2022, Heart Capital is an early-stage Chinese venture capital fund focused on technology and digitalization. The team is led by Yan Han, formerly a founding partner at Lightspeed China, alongside core investors, a CFO, and seasoned investors from industry backgrounds. The team's past investments include Series A stakes in Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV, 09868.HK) and Full Truck Alliance (NYSE: YMM), as well as investments in FinVolution (NYSE: FINV), RoboSense (02948.HK), Baichuan, Yunmanman Lengyun, Fan Deng Reading, World Logistics, Weina Xingkong, LandSpace, Lanhu, Starfield, and others. Rooted in China with a global outlook, Heart Capital is committed to finding genuine value in non-consensus opportunities. The firm respects the value of "people" and champions the potential of "heart," aspiring to accompany more young Chinese entrepreneurs in strengthening China and expanding onto the world stage.