4 billion yuan, the giant of insurance capital has made another move

Insurance capital giants are once again flexing their investment muscles.

On July 17, Taikang Asset announced that two newly established funds launched by Taikang Investment — the Taikang Jiafeng FOF and the Taikang Jiafeng Industrial Integration Fund — had completed their AMAC filings on the same day, with a combined registered size of 4 billion yuan.

Founded in 2016, Taikang Investment is a private equity fund management platform under Taikang Asset. Since policy restrictions were lifted in 2020, the institution has remained highly active in the primary market. It not only acts as an LP behind well-known VC firms such as Qiming Venture Partners and Huaying Capital, but has also made direct investments in multiple high-profile projects including Hithium Energy and Micro-Tech Medical.

The launch of these two new funds marks that its investment landscape now covers a complete industrial chain spanning early-stage, growth-stage, and mid-to-late stage M&A integration.

More notably, beyond the primary market, this insurance capital giant has also achieved remarkable success in the secondary market. During the Hong Kong stock IPO wave over the past six months, Taikang Life has frequently taken action as a cornerstone investor, accurately backing a series of star projects including Zhipu AI and Biren Technology. From its single investment in Zhipu AI alone, the floating profit has exceeded HKD 2.2 billion, representing an impressive performance.

4 Billion Yuan Targeted for Industrial Investment

Let's first look at the fundamentals of the two funds.

The first is the Taikang Jiafeng FOF, with a registered size of 2 billion yuan and an initial committed capital of 1.501 billion yuan, located in Ningde, Fujian. This is the second FOF product issued by Taikang Investment following the launch of the insurance industry's first equity FOF — the Taikang Qianheng Fund — in 2020. It is reported that building on the PSD investment framework of its first-phase FOF, this new FOF will delve deeper into industrial chains, with a focus on the hard technology and healthcare tracks.

The other fund, the Taikang Jiafeng Industrial Integration Fund, has a registered size of 2.001 billion yuan that is fully committed, and is based in Liangxi District, Wuxi, Jiangsu. This fund's strategy complements that of the FOF: instead of acting as an LP, it will partner with leading industrial enterprises and top-tier M&A funds to directly pursue opportunities for industrial chain integration and mature business acquisitions in the medical and technology sectors.

The choice of registration locations is particularly noteworthy: Ningde is the home base of CATL, the global power battery leader, with a dense cluster of upstream and downstream enterprises in the new energy industrial chain; Liangxi in Wuxi is a major hub for the integrated circuit and biomedical industries, where SK Hynix's Wuxi Industrial Park — the company's largest global production facility that accounts for over 30% of its total DRAM output — is situated. By establishing both funds in these locations, Taikang is clearly leveraging the strong industrial agglomeration advantages of the two regions.

This decision aligns perfectly with Taikang Investment's consistent strategy of "centering on industrial funds and focusing on industrial capital".

As early as the China Investment Annual Conference at the end of last year, Huang Shengxuan, CEO of Taikang Investment, outlined this line of thinking in his speech. He stated that amid the transformation of industry tracks and investment paradigms, it is essential to closely follow industrial trends. In the hard technology sector in particular, allocating capital around leading industrial players and participating in their industrial integration and industrial chain investments can significantly enhance the safety, profitability, and certainty of insurance capital allocation.

In that same speech, he also shared Taikang Investment's two core allocation directions: first, deploying capital in vertical early-stage VC funds — diversifying risks through investments in specialized VC funds, leveraging the managers' industrial judgment capabilities to capture early-stage opportunities and pursue return flexibility; second, tapping into late-stage transaction opportunities including M&A and existing business restructuring projects, and collaborating with industrial capital in the future to promote strategies for stable returns and steady cash flow.

As it turns out, these two newly launched funds are a direct realization of that vision set half a year ago.

Assets Under Management Exceed 100 Billion Yuan

There is no doubt that Taikang Investment is already one of the most active insurance capital players in the current primary market.

Back on July 15, 2020, at an executive meeting of the State Council, then-Premier Li Keqiang stated that financial institutions should be encouraged to develop equipment financial leasing and venture-related insurance businesses, that industry restrictions on insurance funds making financial equity investments should be lifted, and that pilot programs for equity investment and venture capital share transfer should be carried out on regional equity markets. This was widely regarded by the industry as a landmark signal that the gate for insurance capital to participate in equity investment had been opened.

In the same year, Taikang Investment moved quickly to establish two funds: the Taikang Qianzhen Direct Investment Fund and the Taikang Qianheng Equity FOF, with the latter being the very first equity FOF across the entire insurance industry.

Six years later, this pioneering FOF has delivered an outstanding performance. According to data from CVSource by ChinaVenture, the Taikang Qianheng Equity FOF has cumulatively invested in 23 funds, serving as an LP behind numerous well-known VC firms including Qiming Venture Partners, Huaying Capital, Yuanhe Puhua, Northern Light Venture Capital, and Innoangel Fund.

Today, the size of the second-phase FOF has increased from 1.2 billion yuan to 2 billion yuan. This substantial growth is underpinned by the solid performance of its first-phase fund.

Beyond its LP business, Taikang Investment has also been highly active in direct investments over the years. To date, Taikang Investment has invested in more than 20 companies including Hithium Energy, Micro-Tech Medical, Rongtong Hi-Tech, and Aibotek through its direct investment funds, among which Micro-Tech Medical was listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2021.

Since its founding in 2016, Taikang Investment's assets under management have surpassed 100 billion yuan. With the launch of the Jiafeng Industrial Integration Fund, a complete investment chain covering early-stage, growth-stage, and mid-to-late stage M&A integration has taken shape.

A Harvester of Star Hong Kong Stock IPOs

It is worth noting that compared to Taikang Investment's performance in the primary market, this insurance giant has been on an exceptional winning streak in the secondary market recently.

If you look at the star Hong Kong stock IPOs from the past six months, Biren Technology, Zhipu AI, MiniMax, GigaDevice, and Montage Technology all count Taikang Life among their cornerstone investors.

The most remarkable of these investments is in Zhipu AI, known as the "first large model stock". When Zhipu AI debuted on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 8, 2026, Taikang Life subscribed for 2.0088 million shares as a cornerstone investor at HKD 116.20 per share, totaling approximately HKD 233 million. Since then, Zhipu AI's share price has climbed steadily, and as of the market close on July 17, the floating profit on Taikang Life's stake has reached around HKD 2.2 billion.

Taikang's active presence across both the primary and secondary markets is supported by the robust financial fundamentals of its group.

In April this year, Taikang Insurance released its 2025 Annual Information Disclosure Report, which showed that the group's full-year attributable net profit in 2025 reached 32.05 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.3%. Its core subsidiary Taikang Life recorded insurance business revenue of 238.664 billion yuan and a net profit of 27.159 billion yuan, representing a substantial 84.5% year-on-year growth. Taikang Life has retained its title as the "profit king" among unlisted life insurance companies, with its net profit accounting for over 40% of the combined total profit of 57 unlisted life insurance companies.

As the group's investment engine, Taikang Asset also delivered a strong performance in 2025: its operating revenue reached 7.926 billion yuan (up 26.2% year-on-year), net profit hit 4.024 billion yuan (up 41.5% year-on-year) — the fastest growth rate among the three giants of China Life, Ping An, and Taikang — with an ROE of 37.7% and total assets under management exceeding 4.8 trillion yuan.

These solid performance metrics have collectively built the foundation for Taikang to deploy calmly in the primary market and act decisively in the secondary market.

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