The stock price has surged 8 times in three months, resulting in a floating profit of 30.8 billion yuan for Wuxi State-owned Assets.

Recently, I had a chat with an investor friend, who shared his experience of attending a tech forum not long ago: the entire front row of the venue was occupied by institutions that had generated returns of over 10 billion yuan this year, many of which were state-owned enterprises (SOEs). He remarked with emotion that in the era of tech investment, state-owned capital has evolved from a supporting role to an absolute leading player.

In fact, we have previously introduced numerous cases where state-owned capital backed star projects and reaped superlative returns: for instance, Shanghai's state-owned capital behind Biren Technology, Chongqing's state-owned capital behind Zhenbao Technology, and Haidian's state-owned capital that invested in Zhipu AI, to name a few.

And the "leading player" we are focusing on today is Wuxi.

On April 2, 2026, Jcet, a leading advanced packaging firm, officially debuted on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board (STAR Market) with an issue price of 19.68 yuan per share. As of the close of trading on July 13, the company's share price stood at 188.5 yuan per share, marking a surge of over 800% in just three months and pushing its total market capitalization past 351.13 billion yuan.

As Jcet's largest shareholder, the Wuxi Industrial Development Science and Innovation Fund currently holds a 9.39% stake in the company. Calculated based on the latest closing price, the corresponding market value of this stake is approximately 32.971 billion yuan, while the total investment cost the fund incurred in December 2024 was merely around 2.087 billion yuan — resulting in a floating profit of up to 30.884 billion yuan in just a year and a half.

The biggest IPO on the STAR Market this year, share price surges 800% in three months

Jcet's listing stands as one of the most landmark cases on the STAR Market in recent times.

Let's turn the clock back to April 2. As the largest IPO on the STAR Market within the year (a record that may soon be broken by Changxin Technology), Jcet was met with overwhelming investor enthusiasm the moment it entered the capital market: its share price skyrocketed by over 400% at the opening, peaking at 100.99 yuan during the trading session. By the close of the day, the share price settled at 76.65 yuan per share, giving the company a market capitalization of 142.8 billion yuan, which surpassed JCET Group and secured its position as the top-valued enterprise in the A-share packaging and testing sector.

In the subsequent two months, the share price continued its strong upward trend amid fluctuations. By July 13, it closed at 188.5 yuan per share, representing a cumulative increase of over 800%, with the latest market capitalization reaching approximately 351.13 billion yuan.

Here's an additional piece of context: Jcet's price-to-earnings (PE) ratio at issuance was 195.62 times, while the average PE ratio of the semiconductor packaging and testing industry at that time was only 62.61 times. In other words, from the very beginning, the market assigned the company a valuation far exceeding the industry average, and this positive sentiment only continued to grow after its listing.

Why was the market willing to offer such a high premium? To answer this question, we need to start from the beginning.

Jcet's predecessor, SMIC JCET, was established in August 2014 with funding from SMIC, a leading domestic wafer foundry, and JCET Group, a giant packaging and testing enterprise based in Jiangyin. That year, the *National Integrated Circuit Industry Development Promotion Outline* had just been released, and China had almost no presence in the mid-process manufacturing of 12-inch wafers. This team, starting out from Jiangyin High-Tech Zone, had a clear goal: to fill this critical gap in the industry.

The company moved at a remarkably fast pace in its early stages. Just one year after its founding, it completed the debugging of production processes and product certifications. In 2016, it became a mass-production supplier for Qualcomm's 14-nanometer wafer bumping services, making it the first semiconductor enterprise in mainland China to enter the 14-nanometer advanced process node and achieve mass production.

2021 marked a crucial turning point. Due to changes in the external environment, SMIC and JCET Group withdrew from the company's shareholder roster, and the enterprise was renamed Jcet, beginning its independent development journey.

After parting ways with the two major industrial shareholders, Jcet did not slow down. In the very year it went independent, it completed a $300 million Series C financing round, and in 2023, it closed its Series C+ round, pushing its valuation to nearly $2 billion. Institutions including TCL Venture Capital, Yuanhe Puhua, Shangqi Capital, Legend Capital, Cybernaut, and CICC Capital all joined as investors during this period.

With the support of capital, the company entered an even faster expansion phase. According to statistics from CIC Consulting, by 2024, it had become the enterprise with the largest 12-inch bump manufacturing production capacity in mainland China. Additionally, per Gartner's data, in 2024, Jcet ranked as the world's 10th largest and China's 4th largest packaging and testing enterprise, and its compound annual growth rate of operating revenue from 2022 to 2024 was the highest among the world's top 10 players in the sector.

In the higher-barrier field of 2.5D advanced packaging, Jcet's position is even more prominent — its domestic market share reached 85% in 2025, and it was the only enterprise in mainland China that had achieved large-scale mass production of silicon-based 2.5D processes at that time.

Looking at its financial performance, as stated in the prospectus, from 2022 to 2025, the company's operating revenue quadrupled from 1.633 billion yuan to 6.521 billion yuan; its net profit attributable to shareholders gradually climbed from a loss of 329 million yuan to 34 million yuan, then to 214 million yuan, and finally reached 923 million yuan in 2025.

Technological iteration never stopped. In May 2024, Jcet launched TSV through-silicon via carrier technology with three times the reticle size, advancing the line width precision of advanced packaging to the sub-micron level.

All these figures combined largely explain the secondary market's strong enthusiasm: a company with a dominant position in the advanced packaging niche, rapid performance growth, and continuous technological breakthroughs is highly likely to become a sought-after target for capital when market sentiment is positive.

Wuxi state-owned capital places its bet, floating profit exceeds 30.8 billion yuan in less than two years

Of course, Jcet could not have achieved its current status without the support of the Wuxi municipal government.

Since the company settled in Jiangyin in 2014, the local government has continuously provided support in terms of land, talent recruitment, and industrial chain supporting facilities. A notable detail, as reported by local media, is that to accommodate the company's explosive growth, Jiangyin High-Tech Zone collaborated with Jcet to recruit skilled workers, helping the enterprise expand its employee base from 3,000 to over 6,000 people, which provided solid human resources support for the ramp-up of production capacity.

More importantly, the support came in the form of capital. On December 31, 2024, Jcet announced the closing of a $700 million private placement financing. The list of investors included local Wuxi state-owned entities such as the Wuxi Industrial Development Science and Innovation Fund and Jiangyin Binjiang Chengyuan Investment Group, alongside other institutions like Shanghai State-owned Investment Futeng Capital, Shanghai International Group, Lingang New Area Xinxin Fund, and the Social Security Fund Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Fund.

The timing of this financing was particularly critical. At that point, Jcet was in a key growth phase of large-scale capacity expansion for 2.5D advanced packaging. This type of production line investment is characterized by large capital requirements, long cycles, and slow returns, which inherently makes it less attractive to market-oriented capital that demands high short-term financial returns.

As a local state-owned capital entity, the Wuxi Industrial Development Science and Innovation Fund made a decisive decision: not only to invest, but to make a heavyweight commitment, and formally pledged not to reduce its holdings for five years.

As disclosed in the prospectus, the Wuxi Industrial Development Science and Innovation Fund subscribed for 175 million shares at a price of $1.75 per share, becoming the company's largest shareholder with a total consideration of $306 million, equivalent to approximately 2.087 billion yuan.

Facts have proven that Wuxi's state-owned capital made the right bet — after the IPO, the Wuxi Industrial Development Science and Innovation Fund holds a 9.39% stake in Jcet. Calculated based on the latest market capitalization of 351.13 billion yuan, the book value of this investment has exceeded 32.971 billion yuan, with a floating profit of over 30.884 billion yuan. If we add the holdings of other local state-owned entities such as Jiangyin Binjiang Chengyuan, the total floating profit of the entire Wuxi state-owned capital system on this project is even more substantial.

That said, while the return on this investment is impressive, its value extends far beyond financial figures. The capacity expansion of Jcet after its listing will directly drive the formation of an advanced packaging industrial cluster in Jiangyin High-Tech Zone, thereby attracting a group of upstream and downstream supporting enterprises to establish operations in the region.

From the perspective of Wuxi's state-owned capital, this is undoubtedly a win-win deal that "delivers both financial returns and industrial development."

Wuxi's semiconductor industry enters a golden harvest period

Jcet is a concentrated reflection of Wuxi's semiconductor industry capital layout, but it is by no means the only success story.

Looking back at the first half of 2026, semiconductor enterprises in Wuxi have been continuously entering the capital market:

On April 10, SAIYING Electronics, a leading manufacturer of power semiconductor components, listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange;

On April 13, Chuangda New Materials, a packaging materials enterprise, listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange;

On June 17, Jinji Electronics, an automotive wireless sensing SoC developer, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

In addition, the IPO application of Haoda Electronics, an RF chip company, was accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange on June 2.

This concentrated wave of breakthroughs by semiconductor companies is no accident.

First, let's look at the industrial foundation. Wuxi is the only prefecture-level city in China that boasts a complete integrated circuit industry chain. Public data shows that in 2025, the revenue of Wuxi's integrated circuit industry exceeded 250 billion yuan, with the technical level and industrial scale of its packaging and testing sector ranking first in the country. Moreover, the city is home to over 600 enterprises across the industrial chain, covering every link from design and manufacturing to packaging and testing, equipment, and materials.

Then, there is the capital support. Back in 2024, Wuxi partnered with Jiangsu Province to set up four special funds for strategic emerging industries with a total size of 12 billion yuan, covering fields such as integrated circuits, biomedicine, future industries, and low-altitude economy. Among them, the integrated circuit industry special parent fund has a scale of 5 billion yuan and a duration of 15 years.

In October 2025, this parent fund joined hands with Yida Capital, Jiangsu High-Tech Investment Group, Yuanhe Capital, and other institutions to establish its first sub-fund — Wuxi Gaotou Yida Strategic Emerging Integrated Circuit Equity Investment Fund (Limited Partnership); shortly thereafter, in January this year, it collaborated with CETC Investment, Binhu Industrial Group, and others to set up the CETC (Wuxi) Electronic Basic Industry Equity Fund (Limited Partnership); in March, it partnered with BOC's BOC Asset, Jiangyin High-Tech Zone Financial Investment Company, and Jiangyin New Guolian Group to jointly establish a 1 billion-yuan AIC sub-fund.

In addition, the parent fund has also made direct investments in multiple projects, including Xingwei Technology, Jusheng Semiconductor, Xinxiang Technology, and Shangji Semiconductor.

It is foreseeable that with the dual empowerment of "industry + capital," Wuxi will nurture the next Jcet, and even more high-growth advanced semiconductor enterprises, in the future.

This article is from the WeChat official account "ChinaVenture", written by Wang Manhua, and published with authorization from 36Kr.