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Titan Media Note: This article comes from the WeChat public account Investment Circle (ID: pedaily2012), author丨Zhang Jiwen Zhou Jiali, Titanium Media is authorized to publish.
chip richest man is quietly shopping for chip companies.
investment community learned that recently, a chip company called Qianhai Weisheng underwent industrial and commercial changes. After the equity penetration, it was found that behind the new shareholder was Yu Renrong, the actual controller of the leading semiconductor listed company Weier Co., Ltd. . After careful investigation, it was found that this was the fifth time Yu Renrong took to since this year.
Perhaps many people don’t know Yu Renrong. But in the field of semiconductors in China, Yu Renrong is a well-known name . Yu Renrong, 55 years old this year, was once a member of Class 85 of Tsinghua University. The market value of Weier shares in his command has exceeded 200 billion yuan, and he has become the richest chip in China with a net worth of over 50 billion yuan.
Yu Renrong's intensive actions are just a microcosm of the hot chips at the moment. Starting this year, chips are one of the most valuable tracks . In addition to professional VC/PE institutions, industrial capital such as Xiaomi , Huawei , SAIC, BYD has also poured in, and Internet manufacturers such as Baidu and ByteDance can't help but go to make chips in person. Now, the financing myth is constantly emerging in the chip field, and chip companies can easily raise over 100 million yuan in the angel round alone.
, three months, 5 attacks, chip boss scanner chip company
This is the fifth time that the chip boss takes action in three months.
Recently, Shenzhen Qianhai Weisheng Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Qianhai Weisheng") underwent industrial and commercial changes, and the new shareholder Pingtan Feng Yuan Huixin Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership). After the latter's equity penetrated, it was found that the investment institution's affiliated party is Yu Renrong , the actual controller of Weier Co., Ltd. , the leading listed company of semiconductors, and indirectly holds about 2% of Shenzhen Qianhai Weisheng Intelligent Shares.
data shows that Qianhai Weisheng is mainly engaged in the research and development and sales of chips in RF and Internet of Things. Its main products include small wireless receiving and transmitting chips in the 315/433 band, contactless NFC card reading chips, Bluetooth, WIFI chips, secure CPUs, etc., and its main application fields are smart homes, Internet of Things, POS machines, etc.
, and the investment community found that in the past two months, Yu Renrong invested in 3 semiconductor companies through Pingtan Fengyuan Huixin Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) industry, including Dongguan Changgong Microelectronics Co., Ltd., Xinhe Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co., Ltd., and Qiangyi Semiconductor (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.
In addition, Yu Renrong also directly invested in chip companies through weier shares . In January this year, weier shares invested in Shenzhen Gideas Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Gideas"). Currently, weier shares is the company's major shareholder, with a shareholding ratio of 65.28%.
Of course, this is not the first time Yu Renrong has made such a big investment. Previously, Yu Renrong promoted Weier Co., Ltd. to complete a "snake swallowing elephant" acquisition worth tens of billions - to acquire Howie Technology .
Omni Vision was founded in 1995 by Chinese Americans and is headquartered in the center of Silicon Valley, USA. It is one of the largest companies in the field of CMOS sensors (CIS). It has ranked first in the high-end image sensor chip market many times, with a number of core technologies such as silicon-based liquid crystal projection display chip (LCOS), micro-image module packaging (CameraCubeChip), specific purpose integrated circuit product (ASIC). In May 2015, Ouvia, the United States was acquired by a consortium composed of CITIC Capital, Beijing Qingxin Huachuang and Jinshi Investment for US$1.9 billion. It completed privatization in early 2016 and became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ouvia.
In 2017, Weier Co., Ltd. issued an announcement to acquire 86.5% of the equity of Beijing Haowei Semiconductor, but it was terminated due to opposition from the latter's major shareholders. However, just a few days after Weier shares announced that it would stop acquiring Beijing Howe, Yu Renrong became the new CEO of Beijing Howe. By entering the board of directors and intervening in the company's management, Yu Renrong gradually gained control over Beijing Howe.
After completing the acquisition of Howie Technology with a 10 billion yuan, Weier Co., Ltd. has turned its attention to domestic and foreign integrated circuit mergers and acquisitions and integration . In December 2019, Weier Co., Ltd. issued an announcement that it plans to invest US$50 million in cash through its wholly-owned overseas subsidiaries to participate in the investment of overseas semiconductor funds (Creative Legend Investments Ltd.) managed by Puhua Capital. It is not difficult to see that from mergers and acquisitions to direct investment, Yu Renrong is slowly laying out his chip territory.
graduated from Tsinghua University with a market value of 100 billion yuan. 55-year-old Yu Renrong has a net worth of over 50 billion
Who is Yu Renrong?
966, Yu Renrong was born in Zhejiang Ningbo . He studied at Zhenhai Middle School, known as the "super high school". Later, he was admitted to Tsinghua University as he wished. He is a member of the legendary EE85 class of Tsinghua University. His same class alumni include: Unigroup Chairman Zhao Weiguo , Shu Qingming, one of the founders of Zhaoyi Innovation, Feng Chenhui, co-founder of Zhuosheng Microelectronics, Zhao Lixin, founder of Geke Microelectronics, and Zhao Lidong, founder of Suiyuan Technology. It can be said that Tsinghua University’s EE85 class has supported half of the semiconductor field in China. When he graduated from EE85 in 1990, Yu Renrong directly joined Inspur Group as an engineer. Two years later, he resigned and went to a company that mainly deals in distributing electronic components to start sales. This took 6 years to do it. During this period, Yu Renrong figured out the ways of distribution of electronic components agents and planted the seeds for his later entrepreneurship.
1998, 32-year-old Yu Renrong established his own company to establish Beijing Huaqing Xingchang Company, and started the business of electronic components distribution and trade agency. At that time, China's economy was developing rapidly at an astonishing speed, and the wave of globalization was sweeping. This is the best era for the electronic components business. Yu Renrong's company has a hot business by representing the products of American semiconductor giant ON Semi-based company. When it is good, it can make more than 10 million US dollars a year. By 2006, Yu Renrong was the largest distributor of electronic components in Beijing. has insight into the trend of globalization and the emergence of domestic chips. Yu Renrong quietly calculated the calculation: if he only does distribution, it can only be considered "drinking soup". So in 2007, Yu Renrong established a semiconductor component design company in Shanghai - Weier Co., Ltd. , which mainly engages in the research and development and design of semiconductor products such as semiconductor discrete devices and power management ICs, as well as the distribution of various semiconductor products such as passive parts, and officially launched the "two-legged" business model.
Walking on two legs makes Ver Co., Ltd.'s development path of increasingly stable, and the company's strength is gradually becoming stronger. In May 2017, Weier Co., Ltd. was listed on the A-share market with an issue price of 7.02 yuan.
In 2019, after Weier shares successfully acquired Howie Technology, it officially entered the hot CMOS image sensor field, becoming the world's third largest image sensor solution giant after Sony and Samsung. In other words, under the operation of Yu Renrong, Weier Co., Ltd. has transformed from a company with main distribution business to a chip company with main semiconductor design and supplemented distribution business.
, a merger and acquisition case that shocked the industry, directly pushed the stock price of Weier shares to soar. In 2019, Weier shares stood at the top of the semiconductor industry with a market value of 123.8 billion yuan, becoming the second semiconductor company in A shares to exceed 100 billion yuan in . With the rise of Weier shares , the head Yu Renrong's wealth has also risen. He is considered the most profitable person in China's chip industry. In 2020, Yu Renrong listed on the "2020 Forbes China 400 Rich List" with a wealth of 51.38 billion yuan, becoming the richest chip owner in China.
One financing myth was born, Now, chip companies have raised over 100 million in angel round alone
investment stories in the chip field are wonderful: Atletico all walks of life are pouring in.
This year, major automakers have cut production or shut down some factories due to insufficient chip supply. Subsequently, the phenomenon of "chip shortage" in the consumer electronics industries such as mobile phones, home appliances, and panels has gradually become prominent. Against this background, the chip field has once again set off an investment boom.This time, the chip field welcomed a group of special members: Many Internet companies extended their tentacles to the chip field .
In March this year, Chinese search giant Baidu said that its artificial intelligence chip division Kunlun recently completed a round of fundraising, with a valuation of US$2 billion. Sources said the financing was led by Chinese private equity investment company CPE, with IDG Capital, Lenovo Capital and industrial fund OrizaHua.
In the same month, another Internet giant in China, byteDance , chose to enter the chip field. It is understood that through the 12 recruitment contents opened by ByteDance's official website, ByteDance is inferred by itself in the development of cloud AI chips and Arm server chips.
At the same time, industrial capital is also coming in full force. Among them, the financing story of horizon is the most representative. In December 2020, Horizon stated that the total amount of starts is expected to exceed US$700 million. However, in less than three months, Horizon completed its Series C financing, with the financing amount reaching US$900 million, far exceeding the pre-determined target.
It is worth noting that behind Horizon's C round investors are not only well-known investment institutions in the industry such as Hillhouse Venture Capital, Wuyuan Capital, Today Capital, Guotai Junan International, KTB Guotou Investment Merchants, CICC Capital's funds, Zhongwei Capital, but also strategic support from automobile industry chain companies such as BYD , Great Wall Motors, Changjiang Automobile Electronics, Dongfeng Assets, Sunny Optics, and Xingyu Shares .
In fact, since the beginning of this year, auto companies such as SAIC, Dongfeng Motor, BYD , Great Wall Motor, and Changjiang Automobile have gradually laid out their chip fields. Previously, industrial capital such as Xiaomi and Huawei have begun to invest in the semiconductor field. "This type of industrial capital has a high familiarity with its industrial chain, so the success rate and return rate of their investment projects will be very high." An investor with a state-owned background shared.
On the one hand, the army of industrial capital is approaching, while on the other hand, professional VC/PE institutions are fully in full force. Since this year, investment institutions have begun to pay more attention to early-stage projects. A FA organization survey found that nearly 50% of VC institutions are currently looking at semiconductors. Now, the chip company's Angel Round has easily raised more than 100 million yuan in financing, which is surprising.
htmlOn December 25, Moore Thread announced that it had completed two rounds of financing totaling billions of yuan. Surprisingly, the company has been established for less than 100 days, but the investment lineup behind it is extremely luxurious. It not only includes Shenzhen Venture Capital, Sequoia Capital, China Fund, GGV jointly led the investment, China Merchants Venture Capital, Wuyuan Capital and other well-known investment institutions, as well as ByteDance and Pony Intelligence.molar thread is not an isolated case. This year, Muxi Integrated Circuit (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., a GPU chip design company, completed the angel round and Pre-A round financing in less than a month, with Sequoia Capital, Zhen Fund, Heli Capital, Jingwei China, Lightspeed China, Tianjin TEDA and other institutions strongly supported it.
An investor who has been paying attention to the semiconductor field for a long time commented: "At present, the main areas suitable for capital entry are , which is the localization rate of , such as EDA/IP, CPU, GPU, FPGA, network processing chips, automotive chips, memory chips, etc. Especially for automotive chips, the domesticization rate is only 3%. With the continued popularity of smart cars, companies in the industry may have good room for development in the future."
At the same time, some different voices began to appear. "At this stage, most of the domestically replaced samples have not been released and cannot be produced. Especially the development of a large chip costs at least 200 million US dollars, which will take more than two years. The current chip companies of have basically not reached the stage of ." Industry insiders said.
An investor who is concerned about early-stage projects analyzed to the investment community: "Every fund should invest according to its own market positioning. Now everyone is rushing to enter the tracks of CPU, GPU, AI chips, etc. These industries may contain huge risks."
"Now everyone talks about semiconductors, which is good for the overall progress of the country." An investor in a local VC institutional institution in Beijing said bluntly that there is no bubble and no prosperity. This chip feast will continue to take place.
