The two major investment platforms in Pudong have been merged.

Few days ago, ChinaVenture exclusively learned from informed sources that two major district-affiliated state-owned venture capital platforms in Shanghai Pudong New Area — Pudong Innovation Investment Development (Group) Co., Ltd. (abbreviated as Pudong Venture Capital) and Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Innovation Group Co., Ltd. (abbreviated as Pudong Tech Innovation) — have pushed forward the merger and integration work.

In response, ChinaVenture immediately inquired with Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Innovation Group, and the relevant party replied that the news is true, while specific information shall be subject to the official relevant disclosure. In addition, other sources show that after the merger, Haiwang Capital, the market-oriented fund operation platform under Pudong Tech Innovation Group, will still maintain independent operation.

Major Adjustment Coming to the "Dual-Platform" Pattern

The announcement of Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Innovation Group a few days ago also confirmed this point. In accordance with the Notice on the Equal Merger and Restructuring of Shanghai Pudong Innovation Investment Development (Group) Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Innovation Group Co., Ltd., Pudong Venture Capital and Pudong Tech Innovation will carry out equal merger and restructuring.

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Pudong New Area, Shanghai will transfer 91.3% of the equity of Pudong Tech Innovation it holds to Pudong Venture Capital, with the equity transfer base date set as December 31, 2025. After the equity transfer, the controlling shareholder of the issuer will be changed to Pudong Venture Capital, and the actual controller of the issuer remains the district state-owned assets supervision and administration commission.

As two independently operated investment platforms under Pudong New Area, Pudong Venture Capital and Pudong Tech Innovation have long been deeply engaged in the hard technology industry respectively, and their controlling shareholder, the Pudong New Area government of Shanghai, has positioned them in the "2+X state-owned venture capital system".

Specifically, "2" refers to the two independent district-affiliated legal entities of Pudong Venture Capital and Pudong Tech Innovation; "X" covers other district-level state-owned investment platforms in Pudong, Shanghai such as Zhangjiang Sci-Tech Investment and Jinqiao Capital. With the launch of this integration work, the dual-platform pattern that has lasted for many years will also usher in major adjustments, and the two platforms may end the past "parallel operation" mode and turn to integrated coordinated management.

Public information shows that Pudong Venture Capital, established in 2023, is positioned to invest in early-stage and small-sized enterprises, manages the Pudong Angel Mother Fund and the Leading Zone Industrial Mother Fund, focuses on equity participation in sub-funds and direct investment in seed and angel projects, with the scale of funds it participates in reaching 1600 billion yuan, undertaking the mission of leading the construction of Pudong New Area. As for Pudong Tech Innovation Group, its subsidiary market-oriented platform Haiwang Capital (which will remain independently operated after the merger) has been deeply engaged in hard technology investment in Zhangjiang for many years, good at direct investment in growth-stage and PE-stage projects, and has accumulated a large number of invested IPO projects in tracks such as semiconductor equipment and biomedicine. By the end of 2025, the total assets of Pudong Tech Innovation have reached 300 billion yuan, and its Assets Under Management (AUM) is about 600 billion yuan.

This merger is obviously characterized by "drawing on each other's strengths to offset weaknesses and building a full life cycle investment chain".

From the perspective of reform background, in the past two years, Pudong state-owned assets has also continuously promoted the professional integration of similar platforms, successively established district-level capital operation platforms such as Pudong Capital, and promoted the transformation of state-owned capital from "managing assets" to "managing capital". Looking at this merger of the two major venture capital sectors, industry insiders believe that this move is intended to pool scattered fund resources, further expand the overall management scale, improve the leverage capacity of fundraising from insurance capital, central enterprise capital and national large funds, and concentrate resources on investing in the three leading industries of integrated circuits, biomedicine and artificial intelligence, as well as future tracks such as humanoid robots and quantum technology.

Pudong, the Cradle of Hard Tech IPOs

Looking back at the past development of Pudong, it is undoubtedly the "first stop" for hard technology entrepreneurship in China — IPOs are the best "report card" of this hot land.

In the past, listed companies that grew out of Pudong have almost supported half of China's semiconductor industry. From SMIC with a market value of one trillion yuan, to Hua Hong Grace and Muxi Co., Ltd. with a market value of over 200 billion yuan, almost all of them set up their headquarters on this hot land... Behind these names lies a complete growth path from the laboratory to the Sci-Tech Innovation Board (STAR Market), from entrepreneurial teams to industry giants that Shanghai Pudong has explored — and almost every node of this path is accompanied by the presence of Pudong state-owned venture capital forces.

In addition, the "reserve force" that is queuing for IPO also brings strong development momentum to this land, including InnoGrit, one of the domestic "homegrown GPU" enterprises that has launched its prospectus, power semiconductor developer Zhendrive Technology, AR glasses unicorn XREAL that has submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and brain-computer interface company BrainCo, whose Sci-Tech Innovation Board IPO application has been accepted. These hard technology companies gathered in Pudong jointly form a well-structured and complete-tiered IPO "reserve camp".

Then why do these enterprises all choose Pudong by coincidence? The answer lies in Pudong's unique "capital + industry" ecosystem.

On the one hand, Pudong has the densest state-owned venture capital matrix across the country. In addition to Pudong Venture Capital and Pudong Tech Innovation, which are officially advancing the merger process, Pudong has also set up three major state-owned mother fund groups, covering the three leading industries, six core hard industries, and future industries such as brain-inspired intelligence. Especially in key fields such as biomedicine and integrated circuits, 8 industrial platform companies have been deployed, pushing the proportion of industrial investment to jump from 10% to nearly 40%.

By the end of 2025, the total scale of registered funds in Pudong has exceeded 2.3 trillion yuan, and there are 540 fund managers registered in Pudong. Such capital density means that every startup can find suitable "patient capital" in Pudong.

On the other hand, Pudong's "investment and investment promotion linkage" mechanism has formed a closed loop. Government guidance funds do not simply provide capital, but drive investment promotion through investment, and deeply bind capital injection with the complementation and strengthening of the industrial chain. A GPU company that settled in Pudong said that what they get after coming here is not only capital, but also the "admission ticket" to enter Pudong's industrial ecosystem — downstream customers, upstream suppliers, talent resources and policy support all come along with it.

This positive cycle of "capital driving industry and industry feeding back capital" enables hard technology enterprises in Pudong to enjoy higher survival rate and faster growth speed than enterprises in other regions from the day they are founded.

According to the Pudong 10 Core Hard Technology Industrial Clusters Plan for the 15th Five-Year Plan, during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the four industrial clusters of integrated circuits, biomedicine, intelligent connected vehicles, and software and information service industry will reach a scale of 500 billion yuan; artificial intelligence and intelligent terminals will sprint to a scale of 200 billion yuan; civil aviation, marine engineering for ships, embodied intelligence and new energy will reach a scale of 100 billion yuan. To achieve such industrial goals, there is no doubt that more hard technology enterprises need to go public from Pudong, and stronger capital forces are also required to provide continuous financial support for their development.

This article is from the WeChat official account "ChinaVenture", written by Chen Mei, and authorized for release by 36Kr.