What is vitality?

October 9 is Oasis Capital's founding day, chosen for the meaning "perfect in nine out of ten ways." In all things, to bend is to be whole; to have too much is to be confused. Leave one part empty — nine-tenths beautiful is the most beautiful.

What is vitality?

This is the question we've been exploring. The past year has brought dramatic change, and it's only made us more fascinated by it:

Is it courage?

A founder signed with us in March, but pandemic delays meant the business registration couldn't proceed for months. Half a year later, the investment finally closed — and the company's performance hit new highs. I joked, "You're lucky. These days even company loans require personal assets as collateral."

He laughed too. "Yeah, I mortgaged my house back in May."

Is it transparency?

We'd scheduled the term sheet signing. Suddenly the founder opened a deck and said, "Our numbers from last month just came out — we're down 30%. We really want to work with you, but we want you to know the latest situation and what we plan to do next."

Is it responsibility?

A founder, needing to sign a contract and unable to book a next-day flight, drove 2,500 kilometers overnight.

Perhaps none of these.

In extreme environments, it is the hardest seed in the world, the most "ruthless" person. When spring returns, it is the vastest root system deep in the rainforest, the most "reliable" person.

We've all lingered in that corridor, waiting for fate's verdict from the other end. We've all looked into trusting eyes, following our final decisions. We've all been constrained by the bonds of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and thought — returning to the kindness and joy of our true nature.

It transcends personality, behavior, language, emotion — even species and concepts. It is the primal force from which all things arise, the emergent property beneath chaos and disorder.

Ah, vitality — your bewildering charm.

"Vitality comes from genuine passion and a sense of mission. Mission is the starting point of any great endeavor."

— Wenbin Wang, Founder and CEO, Polly

"I understand vitality as both change and constancy. Staying curious, constantly iterating your understanding, embracing the era's transformations, enjoying an adventurous life — this vitality is deeply inspiring, preventing you from 'dying' young and living the rest of your days as a shadow. At the same time, having unchanging convictions, a faith in some state or future, and being willing to devote your life's energy to pursuing it — this conviction makes vitality more complete, more composed."

— Jeff Yin, Founder and CEO, Oasis

"I know I exist in this life for something meaningful to happen. We abandon life's other possibilities and submit to a single goal — that's what gives us simple, immense power. Relying on this strength, we kept seeking partnerships through the pandemic's shadow, and the night we serendipitously met Oasis, I realized: this is the vitality we share."

— Lishi He, Founder and CEO, FORK AI

"For entrepreneurs, vitality is the vision and courage to create the future, the resilience and confidence to overcome difficulties. Powerful vitality helps a company navigate the ups and downs, twists and turns of startup, growth, and maturity phases — enabling continuous iterative innovation as it adapts to economic conditions, reaching new heights of enterprise development."

— Kaiwen Shen, Founder and CEO, Clouds of Silence

"Life gestates, perceives, develops, matures, cycles endlessly — vitality is the internal force of this cyclical process, curiosity and exploration of the world. In the digital age, information is constantly acquired, stored, processed, expressed; when an information system can build corresponding cycles, it too gains vitality."

— Fan Luo, Founder and CEO, Smart Island

"Born from chaos and disorder, emerging through dissipation, interlocking links, encompassing matter, receiving information, combining energy — emergence.

Vitality is flowing matter, information, energy; vitality is the invisible hand; vitality is the objective law of things' development."

— Dr. Yu Chen, Founder and CEO, Biosysen

A thousand founders, a thousand answers.

The era is fertile soil; founders are seeds. We look forward to exploring the answer to "vitality" alongside the most vital founders.

That day, green shade spreads — everywhere under heaven.

So what's your answer?

Leave a comment — we await answers from vitality

Oasis Capital is a new-generation venture capital firm in China, dedicated to discovering the most vital entrepreneurs of the next decade and growing alongside them to create long-term value. "Championing vitality" is Oasis's vision and mission. This vitality is both the direction of the era's structural transformation and the force of entrepreneurs' resilience and evolution.

Oasis Capital focuses on early and growth-stage investments, with check sizes ranging from $3 million to $30 million USD. We concentrate on technology-enabled services, particularly healthcare and enterprise services, supporting China's technology-driven new service upgrade.