The primary market has been silent this year, but Gaojie Capital has ushered in two IPOs in one month -
htmlOn May 21, Yuncong Technology, one of the four AI dragons, officially landed on Science and Technology Innovation Board , and Gaojie Capital is one of the investors; then, the Internet pharmaceutical platform Pharmacist Bang submitted an IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, intending to list on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. "In the next 2-3 years, we will usher in nearly 10 IPO projects." Li Man, founding partner of Gaojie Capital, made a rough calculation.
Gaojie Capital does not leave much impression on its peers, and it "puts very hard". Li Man, one of the helmsmen, graduated from UST . He has been active in Wall Street in his early years and is one of the earliest venture capital investors in China. In 2015, he witnessed the drastic fission of the domestic venture capital market. He jointly founded Gaojie Capital with UST alumni Wang Naxin and Liu Zhongqing . Over the past seven years, Gaojie Capital has continuously discovered a number of technical experts and scientists from overseas, and has incubated and invested in a number of well-known companies such as Yuncong Technology, Dark Matt Intelligence, Zhongxing Technology, Shengke Nano, Meixinsheng, Shuzhilian, Pharmacist , Zhonggan Microelectronics, and Zhongxing Microelectronics .
To this day, Gaojie Capital has managed four RMB funds with a total scale of about RMB 3 billion. Starting from the second half of 2021, Gaojie Capital has been preparing for the raising of the new fund. Now, Li Man leads his team to various places to look at projects. "When the fundraising end is in a downturn, it is often the best investment window. We must seize the opportunity and make up for the lost time in the first half of the year."
was born in the University of Science and Technology of China. They entered the VC circle
This is a VC team with the imprint of the University of Science and Technology of China.
As one of the helmsmen of Gaojie Capital, Li Man was admitted to the University of Science and Technology of China with excellent grades in her early years and studied computer science. Later, she went to the United States to study for an MBA at New York University . After graduation, he joined Wall Street and worked in Fidelity Fund, Goldman Sachs, and . U.S. Business China Economic and Economic Group (WI Harper).
While working at the US Business Economic and Economic Cooperation Group, Li Man began to come into contact with venture capital. At that time, China Economic and Economic Group, which he joined, was also the first international venture capital institution venture capital institution , which entered China Economic and Economic Group and engaged in early-stage and growth-stage technology-driven enterprises. Liu Yuhuan, founder of the US Business China Economic and Economic Group, was once known as one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" in the Chinese investment world. Therefore, Li Man became one of the earliest venture capitalists in China.
Relying on the interdisciplinary background of finance and science and engineering, Li Man quickly served as the managing director of China Economic Cooperation, managing multiple US dollar technology cross-border investment funds, and leading investment in many American star companies such as Focus Media, Xinwei Group, Feita Technology, Aixunte, Xinyuan Electronics and other companies, as well as A-share listed companies.
Time came to 2015. At that time, the domestic venture capital industry entered the VC2.0 fission period. Li Man predicted the opportunity for to invest in the market in , so he found alumni of the University of Science and Technology Wang Naxin and Liu Zhongqing to jointly establish Gaojie Capital.
Wang Naxin is Li Man's classmate during his studies at the University of Science and Technology of China. He was a serial entrepreneur and active angel investor in Silicon Valley. He has invested in many well-known Silicon Valley and traveled between China and the United States all year round. Liu Zhongqing, who graduated from the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China, was once the head and vice president of Shenzhen IDG Capital . He has rich investment experience in the Internet, TMTh and new energy vehicles. In this way, a VC team led by three Chinese University of Science and Technology began to appear on the historical stage of China's venture capital.
When it was first established, Gaojie Capital firmly chose to invest in the technology track and completed the first RMB fund raising work in a very short time. Recalling the scene at that time, Li Man, who was born in a US dollar fund, admitted: "At the beginning of the business, we realized that the team needed to calm down and understand the RMB fund's strategy and the exit rules of the RMB market."
Soon, Gaojie Capital adapted to the style of local venture capital and established the second RMB fund in 2018.This year, the domestic venture capital circle is changing, and the trend represented by shared bicycles and P2P has begun to shatter, and the field of artificial intelligence is very popular. Gaojie Capital, which has been lying on technology investment, has further clarified its direction - smart technology, and has continued to focus on exploring early-stage scientific and technological projects in the A and B rounds.
is different from the popular AI investment at that time. The "smart technology" defined by Gaojie Capital is based on AI as the core, and systematically layouts AI infrastructure, middle-level core components, top-level applications and other links, and then covers semiconductors, data services, cloud computing, Internet of Things, robots, new materials, sensing, intelligent manufacturing and other sub-industry, which is no different from the concept of "hard technology" advocated today. Looking back now, while most of the peers were still chasing TMT, Gaojie Capital had already begun to take root in hard technology.
So far, Gaojie Capital has accumulated a total fund management scale of more than 3 billion yuan, and has invested in well-known projects such as Yuncong Technology, Zhongxing Microelectronics, Dark Things Intelligence, Ruishi Technology, Lice Technology, Pharmacist Bang, Shuzhilian, Shengke Nano, Meixinsheng, Yimicro Semiconductor, etc. What’s more interesting is that Gaojie Capital has recruited a large number of entrepreneurs from the University of Science and Technology, such as Yuncong Technology founder Zhou Xi , Ruishi Technology CEO Wang Yang, Dark Things Intelligence founder Zhu Songchun , etc.
This year, Gaojie Capital launched a new fundraising work for RMB funds, continuing to focus on the application of semiconductors, intelligent manufacturing, dual-carbon technology and AI in the enterprise-level service fields, and vigorously explore entrepreneurs who are eager to use technology and innovation to change the world.
Digest overseas scientists, return to China to start a business
Detailed explanation of Gaojie's rare strategy
In the past few years, everyone in the VC circle seems to be investing in hard technology. But as we all know, hard technology investment cycle is long and has great risks, which is a difficult "hard bone" to crack. This requires investors not only to be able to understand the technical principles of cutting-edge technology and avoid falling into the "pseudoscience" trap, but also to have forward-looking predictions about the industry, with extremely high thresholds.
"We have been investing in technology for more than 20 years. We are very good at exploring cutting-edge technologies, and will even settle into basic science levels such as electronics and physics to understand technology. Therefore, our team can more accurately detect which technologies can bring about changes in productivity and which technologies can promote social change." When talking about this topic, Li Man was a little excited. "It is precisely because we understand technology trends very well that we dare to invest before the project has made products."
Lice Technology is a typical case where Gaojie Capital dares to bet on new technologies. Founded in 2013, Lice Technology's products mainly include two series: one is the optical phased array radar (OPA) chip, used to design lidar products for on-board navigation; the other is mechanical radar, for service robot , industrial AGV, logistics AMR and other purposes. Among them, OPA is a new chip genre, and its physical principles are still being explored. In the early years, many investors and industry experts believed that this technology might not be overcome in the short term and was still a long way from practicality.
However, Gaojie Capital team predicts from an industry perspective that OPA may be the most ideal solution for solid-state lidar in the future. "Although this is a cutting-edge technology that few people explore, the Lice Technology team dares to challenge a world problem, and as investors, we are willing to support such a challenger who is brave enough to try." Li Man remembers that in 2018, Gaojie Capital resolutely led the Pre-A round of financing of Lice Technology. Three years after completing the investment, Lice Technology's OPA chips have attracted more and more attention from the industry. In September 2021, Xiaomi Yangtze Industry Fund invested in Lice Technology.
Based on its own understanding of emerging technology tracks, Gaojie Capital has also discovered many hidden champions, such as semiconductor failure detection supplier Shengke Nano, semiconductor digital chip detection equipment supplier Yuexin Technology, and the largest pharmaceutical B2B platform Pharmacist Bang in China. Now, these companies have completed multiple rounds of financing and even started preparing for IPOs, with their valuations growing rapidly.
Because of its sufficient focus in the field of technology investment, Gaojie Capital team also has a capability that is different from its investment peers - incubating projects, which actively guides some top scientists in the industry to start their own businesses. Among them, Wang Yang, the founder of Ruishi Technology, is a scientist and entrepreneur who spent half a year poaching back from abroad.
Wang Yang has a beautiful resume - graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China, and has obtained master's and doctoral degrees from National University of Singapore - MIT and Lehigh University in the United States. He also has more than 20 years of experience in semiconductor optical chip research and development, large-scale production and foundry management in international leading chip companies. For Wang Yang, returning to China to start a business means saying goodbye to a stable and high-paying job, which is not small.
But in the view of Gaojie Capital team, with the popularization of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and sensing technologies, optoelectronic chips have a huge market space. "Entrepreneurship opportunities are rare, and once you miss them, it is difficult to seize them." After many in-depth exchanges, Wang Yang was moved by Gaojie Capital team and returned to Shenzhen in 2018 to establish Ruishi Technology. At the beginning of its establishment, the company received tens of millions of angel round investment from Zhongke Chuangxing and Gaojie Capital. To this day, Ruishi Technology has mass-produced a number of high-performance VCSEL chip products, optical integrated light source products and optical module products. Along the way, Ruishi Technology has also completed five rounds of financing, with investors such as Shenzhen Venture Capital and China Resources Capital.
and Zhu Songchun, a world-renowned computer vision expert and artificial intelligence expert, also decided to return to China under the guidance of Gao Jie Capital team, to create a new generation of artificial intelligence technology platform developer Dark Things Intelligence, to create a new generation of artificial intelligence technology platform based on strong cognition. In July this year, when the AI track was over, Dark Mind Intelligent completed a 500 million yuan Series B financing against the trend. The investors were Guangzhou Industrial Investment, Guangzhou Urban Investment, Guangzhou Industrial Control, Guangzhou Financial Holdings, and Nansha Kejin Holdings.
This has become Gaojie Capital's unique "trump card" - uses the rich network of contacts accumulated by the investment team in Silicon Valley to attract outstanding overseas scientists to return to China to start businesses. Now, the Silicon Valley office in charge of Gaojie Capital, the Huayuan Science and Technology Association where Li Man serves as the founding director, and the huge alumni circle of University of Science and Technology have built a rich project pool, continuously providing investment inspiration and high-quality projects to Gaojie Capital.
"We can know the world's most cutting-edge technology direction as soon as possible, understand the industrial trends of technology giants, and then find the best talents in this track to bring back to China, so that the world's cutting-edge innovative technologies can take root in China." Li Manyun said calmly that the remaining job of investors is to help scientists adapt to the domestic market as soon as possible and silently accompany them to survive the trough of technology entrepreneurship.
The cultivation of a technology VC:
Correct attitude, do a good job in party B
It has been more than half in 2022, but the anxiety in the primary market has not completely dissipated. Li Man, who has experienced many economic cycles, is very calm: "Adjust your mentality and be a good party." Gaojie Capital's recent plan is to serve LPs well on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is steadily empowering the invested projects.
GP's natural mission is to make money for LP. However, in the past year, the markets of A-shares, Hong Kong stocks , US stocks have undergone drastic changes, especially the IPO situation of Hong Kong stocks and US stocks has taken a sharp turn for the worse, and A-shares are often in an embarrassing situation where new stocks break the issue price. Recently, many LPs have lamented that many GPs always use beautiful IRR transcripts to speak, but they dare not talk about DPI, and LPs cannot see the real money return.
Li Man also felt the emotional changes of LP, "they are increasingly emphasizing that it is safe to put the bag in peace." In this regard, Gaojie Capital has made corresponding adjustments to its exit strategy - increasing the DPI weight and appropriately reducing the IRR. Specifically, whenever the subsequent valuation of the invested project increases well, Gaojie Capital will first withdraw a small part. "Of course, each project will still retain a large number of shares to wait for the IPO to exit."
. On the investment side, Li Man also noticed that the relationship between investors and entrepreneurs has undergone subtle changes.In the past, there were not so many investment institutions focusing on technology, and entrepreneurs were often on the weaker side. But now, more and more investors are competing for projects, high-quality entrepreneurs have become scarce resources, and VC/PE has begun to queue up to visit. "Our team has a good mentality. Putting aside its attitude and doing a good job in Party B is more conducive to investing in projects and empowering it."
, especially at the moment when "good projects are scrambling to the top", more and more entrepreneurial companies are beginning to pay attention to the investment institutions' post-investment management capabilities, and therefore prefer industrial capital , which has its own industrial resources. Industry insiders have summarized this rule: many startup founders will give priority to using industrial capital and local government money, followed by the national team, and finally pure financial capital.
Li Man believes that "early scientific and technological projects are not suitable for accepting industrial capital." If scientific and technological projects accept order support from industrial capital too early, they are likely to lose the ability to fight in the wind and rain. Over time, the company's revenue performance seems to be good, but its overall competitiveness is not strong enough.
At present, a batch of technology "unicorn" bubbles with unprofitable and unclear business models are being burst. Among them, some star projects that are optimistic about by industrial capital or Internet strategic investors are in dilemma. Why do they still encounter business difficulties with industrial capital as their backer? In Li Man's view, domestic companies may have certain misunderstandings about industrial capital. As early as when technology investment in the United States was prevalent, industrial capital became more and more active. However, most industrial capital is based on the group strategy, and financial returns are not the core assessment factor. Once the business conditions of the invested companies are not satisfactory, industrial capital may not provide help as soon as possible, but instead the attitude of financial VCs is more positive.
" Financial investment in institutions are for the purpose of making money. When companies have problems, they are more motivated to help solve the problem." This reminds Li Man of the video coding decoding technology provider DivX, which he tutored more than ten years ago. When DivX encountered financial difficulties, many investors and even industrial investors were unintentional to save it. However, Li Man's team spent two weeks helping to contact potential customers, and the company was able to turn around and later landed on the Nasdaq in the United States in 2006. "This is the difference between financial investors and CVC. We will not give up any company easily."
Nowadays, the popularity of semiconductors, SAAS and other tracks is slowly declining, and many investors choose to leave, leaving behind a mess. Witnessing the ups and downs of the track, Li Man believes that these tracks have not come to an end, and investors can still find the hidden champion to calm down. Taking the chip track as an example, there is an oversupply problem of mid- and low-end chip entrepreneurship, but the incremental market of sub-tracks such as semiconductor materials , equipment, and analog chips cannot be underestimated.
There is no doubt that these promising segmented tracks have higher thresholds and have more stringent requirements for investors. "As long as Chinese companies have the opportunity, we will spare no effort to find the most reliable team." Just like in the past seven years, Gaojie Capital team has devoted itself to fulfilling its simple mission - to be a first-class catcher of technology unicorn enterprise .
