Xingchen Zhang | Source Code Capital: A Single Grain of Conviction, Betting on Your Leap of Faith

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Cross mountains and seas to discover a precious seed.

#MaKe Key Updates from Source Code Capital and MaHui Members

Source Code Capital has officially launched Source Code Yisu, a dedicated seed-stage investment unit operating independently within the firm's investment framework.

Led by Xingchen Zhang, Managing Director at Source Code, Yisu fields its own investment team and applies a "back the founder" philosophy and decision-making framework to discover, support, and accompany technology entrepreneurs on their journey from zero to one.

Below is the full text of Xingchen Zhang's speech:

Hello everyone, I'm Xingchen Zhang.

You may not know me well, so let me briefly introduce myself.

I'm an investor at Source Code, but more importantly, I'm an entrepreneur constantly exploring — searching for my sense of mission.

Shortly after graduate school, I joined Source Code as the first employee on the investment team. Over the past eight years, I've witnessed and participated in Source Code's own zero-to-one journey, observing our founding partner Yi Cao (we call him Lao Cao) — how he recruited talent, made investments, and solved one institutional challenge after another. I've also had the privilege of investing in numerous startups across different stages and sectors, from robotics and industrial digitization to enterprise services, AR/VR, and semiconductors. Growing alongside these entrepreneurs, I've come to deeply understand the hardships of building a company, and I hold even greater respect for the conviction and courage it demands.

Entrepreneurs are people filled with a sense of mission.

So am I.

Over the past two years, I've often discussed with Lao Cao what the mission of investing should be. His answer: creating lasting, real value.

At the time, "value" felt like a macro concept to me. It brought to mind a book I read repeatedly as a student — At the Top of the Tides. Over the past century, great entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates built companies such as Apple and Microsoft that stood at the very forefront of technological revolutions, creating immense value.

I aspired to that. And I began paying closer attention to Source Code's technology investment direction.

Starting in the 2020s, China's tech development has become more self-reliant and robust. More and more entrepreneurs are attempting true zero-to-one technological innovation. I believe that in the coming decade, China will see many great entrepreneurs whose technological innovations will generate lasting, real value. Right now, they are still in their earliest stages — in other words, they are seeds.

A sense of mission suddenly crystallized for me: I hope to walk alongside China's technology entrepreneurs, to witness and experience this zero-to-one journey together, and to continue Source Code's commitment to investing early, investing small, and investing in technology — helping more Chinese technology companies emerge and grow. This is something deeply meaningful, something of great value to me.

In fact, since Source Code's founding, we have invested in over 140 seed-stage projects of RMB 20 million or less, and several have grown into unicorns — Cloud Whale, Chuxin, Ruigu, RELX, and Baibu, among others. But our seed-stage investing hadn't been systematic enough. We lacked a refined methodology, and these investments represented a relatively small share of our overall portfolio.

I hope to lead our seed business in building a more systematic approach to zero-to-one technology investing. When I proposed this, Lao Cao gave his support after just five minutes. We spent the remaining fifty-five minutes diving straight into execution strategy.

Yisu — "a single grain of millet" — is our name for the seed business. It draws from the phrase "a grain of millet in the vast ocean." We are willing to traverse mountains and seas to discover a precious seed, one that embodies the unwavering conviction of both the entrepreneur and ourselves. Within that single grain, zero-to-one technology can break through imagination and open entirely new possibilities. This is the spirit of "when one grain sprouts, all things come alive."

In the spring of 2021, at a café in Shanghai, I met an entrepreneur who had just left a major internet company and was "tinkering" with something in VR hardware and content ecosystems. At that time, VR hardware was only beginning to show promise, and content was even more barren. But he spoke with infectious energy in his Hunan-accented Mandarin, his eyes shining with conviction. Suddenly he pulled out two VR headsets and invited me to play a multiplayer game with him. The moment I put it on — wow. That game was brimming with the imagination of a new world, deeply immersive, even moving.

Only later did I learn that he had been quietly studying VR hardware product architecture, exploring the boundaries of emerging technology, and searching for like-minded teammates. He carried equipment in his backpack at all times, ever ready to blow your mind. It was truly remarkable. Three months later, he launched his own startup, and we were fortunate to become his seed investor.

The wholehearted conviction to do something well, the courage to push forward with lonely but optimistic resolve — this is exactly the kind of seed we seek, the kind of person we want to back. Source Code Yisu invests in people. In you. In your leap of faith.

A leap of faith is not easy for any entrepreneur. And zero-to-one technological innovation makes it even harder.

Take Cloud Whale's扫拖机器人 — widely acclaimed, sold globally, and named one of TIME magazine's Best Inventions of 2020. Yet this zero-to-one product took Cloud Whale over three years to develop.

Why such persistence? First, Cloud Whale's understanding of user needs was different from — and sharper than — what came before: people don't sweep just to remove dust, but to maintain cleanliness. And true "barefoot freedom" requires not just sweeping but mopping with water.

Adding mopping functionality to a robot that previously only swept introduced complex workflows around water supply and mop cleaning, multiplying R&D difficulty several-fold. Just before launch, they discovered that circular mopping pads left gaps — imperfect. Cloud Whale went back and spent another three months pursuing perfection, developing a triangular mop solution. This embodied what Cloud Whale's founder Junbin Zhang once said about "growing through trial and error."

Sharp insight, sharp solutions, sharp iteration — this is the technology entrepreneur we seek.

But there are also many zero-to-one technological innovations where the product is not yet fully formed, yet they contain tremendous energy and potential — equally worth discovering.

Constrained by domestic manufacturing limitations, China imports large quantities of high-end metal materials annually. Our domestic large aircraft manufacturing has long been bottlenecked by critical metal materials for engines. Xuanze Wang, founder of DeepMaterial, opened our first meeting with: "I'm researching materials for aircraft engine blades, and AI-driven research paradigms could enable their production." He was attempting to solve China's high-end metal materials bottleneck with entirely new technology. Sharp insight, tremendous courage — I invested in him without hesitation.

Source Code Yisu will steadfastly back people. For entrepreneurs with sharp ideas, abundant courage, and a willingness to take that leap of faith — we will travel day and night, and it will all be worth it.

I also hope to travel far and wide, day and night, to see zero-to-one technological innovations continue breaking through and leading us toward a better future.

Where hundreds of boats compete, the one that rows hardest leads; where thousands of sails set forth, the bold advance prevails. Source Code is an investment firm with an entrepreneurial spirit, and Source Code Yisu, as our seed-stage-focused practice, will pursue exploration with even greater conviction. We will explore zero-to-one, explore infinite unknowns, explore your resolve and courage, explore your steadfast conviction.

Over the next ten years, we will keep exploring. We look forward to empowering 100 zero-to-one technology entrepreneurs, witnessing their success, and celebrating their leaps of faith!