Rundtischdiskussion: „Wahnsinn ist nur die Oberfläche“ | WAVES - Neue Welle 2025

This is a new era for China's venture capital and investment. Currently, the Chinese venture capital market is not only at the turning point of the cycle bottoming out but also in the deepening period of structural transformation. In the new ecosystem dominated by policies and with high concentration of state - owned assets and capital, only by conforming to the trend and making flexible adjustments can we capture certain opportunities in the face of uncertainties.

From June 11th to 12th, at the Liangzhu Culture and Art Center in Hangzhou, the 36Kr WAVES New Wave 2025 Conference, themed "New Era", gathered top investors in the venture capital field, founders of emerging enterprises, as well as scientists, creators, and scholars deeply involved in technology, innovation, and business. They jointly discussed cutting - edge issues such as AI technological innovation, the wave of globalization, and value re - evaluation, dissected their views on business ideals and the future world, and together discussed, searched for, and moved towards the "New Era" of China's venture capital.

The scene of the round - table discussion.

On the afternoon of June 11th, a round - table dialogue was held at the investor venue, with the theme "Madness Is Just the Surface". Wang Bei, a partner at Hillhouse Capital; Wang Wenrong, a partner at Fortune Capital; Liu Kai, a partner at Matrix Partners China; Liu Gang, a partner at Alpha Startup Fund; Ren Bobing, an executive director at Sinovation Ventures; and Zheng Can, the managing director at Linear Capital participated in the discussion, with Xu Muxin, the author of "Dark Waves", as the host. The following is the content of the dialogue, sorted out by 36Kr -

Xu Muxin: Hello, everyone. First of all, I'd like to warmly welcome all of you to today's discussion. The theme of our panel is "Madness Is Just the Surface". It also has another name, "The Backstage Promoters of the New Kings in Venture Capital". The "new kings in venture capital" are easy to understand. As the host just mentioned, there have been many star AI companies emerging this year, which may have shown a rather crazy side to the outside world. And you all here are the backstage promoters. From the perspective of the capital market, all of you here saw the opportunities early and got involved. Next, please introduce yourselves and your showcases, starting with Mr. Wang.

Wang Bei: Hello, everyone. I'm Wang Bei from Hillhouse Capital. I mainly focus on early - stage investments, especially in the technology/AI direction. Hillhouse is an investment institution covering the entire investment cycle and all stages. We invest from the seed and angel rounds to the VC and growth stages. For well - known companies like Horizon Robotics, MiniMax, and Zhipu Robotics, we invested in them in the very early stage, even before the companies were officially established, in the first round.

In the field of AI, we have also been very actively involved this year. Since the beginning of this year, we have invested in about 20 companies in the AI field, and more than half of them were invested in at the seed or angel round. Here, I'd also like to promote our special Aseed+ Hillhouse Seed Program. We are very eager to meet more excellent entrepreneurs and support you from the very beginning.

Wang Wenrong: Hello, everyone. I'm Wang Wenrong from Fortune Capital. Currently, we manage assets worth about 66 billion yuan, have invested in more than 800 companies, and over 140 of them have gone public. We are an established and well - regarded fund, and this year marks our 25th anniversary. We have invested in more than 50 companies in the AI industry chain, covering everything from infrastructure, large - scale models to the currently popular AI applications. For example, Zhipu AI, Aish Technology, Rockchip, Biwin Storage, Wuwen Xinqiong, and Qianxun Intelligence.

Liu Kai: Hello, everyone. I'm Liu Kai from Matrix Partners China. We are a dual - currency fund, with both US dollars and RMB. We started paying attention to AI around 2014 and have invested in companies like SenseTime, Pony.ai, and Horizon Robotics. I'm mainly in charge of the hard - technology sector.

Liu Gang: Hello, everyone. I'm Liu Gang from Alpha Startup Fund. We are an early - stage venture capital fund established in 2015, and this year is exactly our 10th anniversary. For the past ten years, we have been focusing on one thing, which is early - stage investments. We mainly focus on three directions: AI, deep technology, and globalization. Currently, we are one of the most active early - stage investment institutions in the market. In the past year, we have been highly concerned about investment opportunities in AI software and hardware. We have invested in companies such as Guangfan Technology, the AI portable camera Looki, the AI companion robot Xuanyuan, and the AI ultra - high - speed camera Pixboom. We are their earliest investors. I'm in charge of the investment business at Alpha.

Ren Bobing: Hello, everyone. I'm Bob from Sinovation Ventures. I'm in charge of the early - stage fund at Sinovation Ventures. We are also a dual - currency fund, with both US dollars and RMB. The company was founded by Dr. Kai - fu Lee in 2009. We started investing in AI early. In 2011, we invested in Megvii. For AI 2.0, we started investing in 2.0 models in 2021, including infrastructure applications. So, we have made arrangements in basically all aspects, from various infrastructures, models, agents to consumer applications, and even embodied AI, with investments in about thirty to forty companies.

Zheng Can: Hello, everyone. I'm Zheng Can from Linear Capital. We are an early - stage investment fund established in 2014, mainly investing in cutting - edge technologies, including AI software applications, AI hardware and robotics, and AI4S. Over the past ten years, we have invested in about 150 companies. For Horizon Robotics, which went public last year, we were their first investor. We were also the earliest investor in Qunhe Technology, one of the "Six Little Dragons in Hangzhou". At Linear Capital, I mainly focus on AI applications and technology consumer products.

Xu Muxin: All of you are investors who have been in the AI field for a long time. When I talked with Zheng Can before, he said that he had reviewed nearly 1000 projects in a year and a half, which was really shocking. Since we are going to discuss "madness" today, let's start with the two biggest changes this year. One is DeepSeek during the Spring Festival, and the other is Manus before. The former shows us China's model capabilities, and the latter makes people aware of general agents. These are the changes felt by the outside world. Today, I'd like to ask you, from the perspective of investors, what changes have these two companies brought to your daily work?

Wang Bei: The theme "Madness Is Just the Surface" is very interesting. Indeed, all of us investors are extremely busy this year. I'm so busy that I have to attend double - digit meetings every day. We often joke that being a VC is like "making a living by the weather". What does "weather" mean here? It means relying on entrepreneurs. More and more entrepreneurs are emerging, whether they are from experienced companies, young founders still in college, or even a young student in senior high school who is starting a business. The new founders are eager to emerge, believing that they can achieve something. This bustling window period is what "making a living by the weather" means for VCs.

This year, we have clearly felt that founders are getting younger and are able to produce results more quickly. Behind this is the continuous improvement of the existing model foundation and the instruction ability as the underlying layer of AI. This provides a great environment for entrepreneurs. So, this year is a dream come true for us as VCs. Of course, it also poses a great challenge to us as investors. First of all, we must be very proactive in establishing relationships with all excellent entrepreneurs as much as possible. Then, we hope to see more early - stage, younger, and even those young people with little previous experience step into the ranks of entrepreneurs.

This year, there is a concept being discussed globally, called "single - person unicorn", which means that we are in an era of technological equalization. It gives more opportunities to young people who do not have the backgrounds, resources, and experiences that investors traditionally value but are brave in thinking and acting. We particularly prefer entrepreneurs with practical abilities and Chinese entrepreneurs who have the ambition to go global and shine in the international market. As a domestic fund, this is a must - do for us.

Wang Wenrong: In recent years, AI entrepreneurship has been quite different from other technology tracks. As Ms. Wang Bei just mentioned, the entrepreneurs in this wave are relatively young, which is the first point. Second, the changes in AI are indeed quite rapid. For example, for Aish Technology, which we invested in and focuses on text - to - video applications, Sora emerged overseas. Another example is that when everyone was deploying large - scale models, DeepSeek came out. The technological changes and iterations in the entire track are relatively fast. Currently, the exit cycle in the primary market is relatively long. During this cycle, new technologies or new paths will inevitably emerge. All we can do is hope that the company has a high probability of success when making decisions. The second point is to use the process of elimination. We need to be more cautious in eliminating some directions and choose more promising ones, shifting from thinking about what to invest in to what not to invest in.

Liu Kai: I gave a presentation before. I think DeepSeek, Manus, and many model and application companies in the United States actually represent a trend, which may be like the divide between the "Protestant" and "Catholic" eras in the AI era. In the past, the AI world was a bit like the "Catholic" era: all knowledge and abilities were concentrated in the hands of the "church", and ordinary people had to rely on authorities (such as large companies like OpenAI and Meta) to "approach the truth". But now, we are entering a "Protestant" - style era: technology is more open, tools are easier to use, and entrepreneurs have the opportunity to build their own models and develop their own applications. We have also invested in large - scale models and applications. So, I think before this year, people highly admired companies like OpenAI and Meta and large - scale enterprises. But after rounds of information bombardment, people have found that this doesn't need to be so centralized. There are many entrepreneurial opportunities. DeepSeek started it all, firing the first shot of the revolution. For example, Tongwen is also doing very well. These things are not that difficult.

In the application field, in the past, if you wanted to develop an influential AI product, people usually thought that you had to "go overseas to the United States" or rely on large - scale enterprises and well - known researchers. Now, it's different. As the two previous speakers mentioned, we are seeing more and more young people, including many students in universities, who can develop excellent applications on their own and consume a large number of tokens. I think the threshold is rapidly decreasing. So, in my opinion, the AI phenomena are just the surface. More importantly, we are entering a new era.

Liu Gang: Alpha is an early - stage institution with a strong focus on investing in people. One of our major bets internally is that we believe a group of new - generation Chinese founders will lead global companies in the future. I think DeepSeek and Manus further confirm this logic. So, for our internal investment, it deepens this aspect. The big variable in the market this year is DeepSeek during the Spring Festival. But we were very active in investing in the market last year because of our inner belief. I think these two companies, DeepSeek and Manus, are very beneficial to Chinese entrepreneurs. I believe the market will have more confidence in Chinese founders and be more willing to support them. This is a significant change.

Ren Bobing: I've been thinking about two main points. The product and the organizational form are closely related. So, as an AI fund in this era, what changes should we make? How is it different from the mobile - Internet era? Also, as shareholders of AI companies, should there be any changes? Secondly, the companies we invest in are making money much faster than in the previous era. But can our fund's performance be several times higher than that of the previous era? This is a difficult question to answer. However, in the mobile - Internet era, the performance of funds was indeed higher than that in the Internet era. We are constantly discussing these two issues and making optimizations. Because the core, including sourcing and investment logic, is closely related to the fund's process, organizational structure, and culture. We are also trying to use AI to optimize the investment and incubation process, hoping to create our own tools like the companies we invest in and establish a new methodology for VCs in the AI era. Since success is difficult to replicate, but failures are easy to summarize, if we can help entrepreneurs avoid the things that may lead to failure with them, it will be a successful system.

Zheng Can: For us, the biggest impact may be on re - evaluating the proportion of focus on the business and the people in early - stage investments. Now, we have significantly increased our focus on the people. Although we used to consider both the business and the people, the specific proportions were different. Today, we find that people play a more important role in such a rapidly changing environment. One is perseverance, and the other is execution ability, which are both demonstrated in the cases of DeepSeek and Manus. So, we now attach much more importance to these two observation angles than before.

Xu Muxin: I'll summarize. It seems that all of you have talked about the topic of people to some extent. I've also observed another change. Last year, a topic that many AI founders always mentioned was PMF. Has there been any change this year? Is PMF still the most core indicator for AI founders, or has it changed?

Wang Bei: Today, we think PMF (Product - Market Fit) may be more of a process indicator rather than an ultimate one. I believe the core of being a VC is to "see because of belief", rather than "believe because of seeing". We talk to more young founders because of our belief, to understand what they want to do, their new perspectives, and their various abilities. Most importantly, we look at the sparkle in their eyes. This kind of belief is the responsibility of a VC. You need to help these potential young people realize their blueprints, so that the product and its value can finally be seen by everyone, by a large number of users. "Seeing" is actually the ultimate goal.

Regarding PMF, we believe that users will ultimately vote with their feet. So, it still depends on the value that the founder can provide in the end. We call this "supply creates demand". No matter who your users are, whether they are knowledge workers, KOLs, or others, no matter how niche the group is, the important thing is whether your product can bring real productivity gains to this group of people. In fact, not only PMF but also ARR, which has been widely discussed recently, is the same. It can reflect user recognition at a certain stage, but if many indicators are just for VCs, they are meaningless. The ultimate answer still lies in how to meet the demand and create value. It doesn't matter whether the product is for consumers or businesses, but it shouldn't be just for VCs, as this will deviate from the real logic of value creation.

Xu Muxin: Do you think the criteria for VCs to screen projects can be quantified, especially for many early - stage AI projects?

Wang Bei: We think that the quantification criteria vary greatly at different investment stages, and the weights of parameters will be adjusted dynamically. For example, in the early stage, the weight of the founder is of course higher. Their unique experience, unique perspective, execution ability, and personal charisma are all very important. Then, they need to be able to deliver results continuously. We highly value practical ability. Whoever can achieve results first will get extra points. We will continuously adjust these parameters.

Xu Muxin: Thank you, Mr. Wang. Is PMF one of your screening criteria?

Wang Wenrong: It is still quite important. To some extent, AI belongs to the software industry. In the past ten years, a lot of capital has been invested in the software track. But in terms of overall returns, compared with hard - technology, different people have different views. This is indeed a question that entrepreneurs need to consider and also a factor that investment institutions need to weigh. It's very important. For example, in the past, if you developed a 2B software, people might think the business model was not attractive. But if it was a 2C product, it wouldn't be profitable in the short term and would require continuous