Zwei sogenannte "chinesische Nvidias" haben FA zwei Milliarden gegeben.

Amid the wave of domestic substitution and AI development, every move of Chinese GPU manufacturers always catches the market's attention. Recently, Moore Threads and Magic Core Technology submitted their prospectuses on the same day, sparking a heated discussion in the industry. The article "China's NVIDIA is Going Public" published by "Dongsi Shitiao Capital" reviewed the development histories and IPO information of the two companies one by one.

However, beyond the IPOs, there are some details in the two prospectuses that are worth noting, especially those highly relevant to the primary market: both Moore Threads and Magic Core Technology paid tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan in financing advisory fees to financial advisors (FAs) during their Pre-IPO rounds. This is a quite substantial income in the FA industry, at least much better than the income data I've learned about this industry in the past two years.

Obviously, industry insiders are excited about the potential to make money. A friend in the FA industry told me, "When can we also take on such big projects?" The envy was palpable. I think the news of these two companies' IPOs and the "FAs making hundreds of millions" sends a clear signal: the exit environment is improving, and the venture capital industry is warming up in some areas. It may not be long before FAs land their next big project, but it's still too early to be overly optimistic. Don't be blinded by the Matthew effect.

Two Pre-IPO Rounds of Financing Bring Big Profits to FAs

Let's first take a look at the specific information disclosed in the prospectuses.

Moore Threads' prospectus shows that the company had 127 million yuan in payable financing advisory fees in 2024 (as shown in the figure below). This is the FA fee payable for Moore Threads' Pre-IPO round of financing at the end of 2024. Moore Threads said that this fee was also the main reason for the 18% increase in "other payables" in 2024. Of course, this amount is recorded in the payable account, which means it hasn't been paid as of the reporting period and represents a significant liability.

Source: Moore Threads' prospectus

How much did Moore Threads raise that it needs to pay 127 million yuan in fees? The data shows that the amount is indeed substantial. In the Pre-IPO round of financing referred to by Moore Threads, 70 million new shares were issued and subscribed by 38 entities, including Xiamen ITG, Wuyuan Qixing, and Hangzhou Fuzhe, for a total of 5.225 billion yuan. The pre - investment valuation was 24.62 billion yuan.

Now let's look at the situation of Magic Core Technology.

Although Magic Core Technology did not disclose the specific amount of the financing advisory fee, it has at least tens of millions of yuan in financing service fees to pay. The prospectus shows that the service fees of Magic Core Technology from 2022 to 2024 were 36.2538 million yuan, 44.5006 million yuan, and 85.1042 million yuan respectively, which are not very high. However, from January to March 2025, the service fees soared to 91.8151 million yuan, mainly due to a large amount of financing advisory fees (see the figure below).

Source: Magic Core Technology's prospectus

"The proportion of financing advisory fees in the service fees is relatively large." The prospectus clearly states, "To speed up the financing process, the company hired multiple third - party institutions to provide financing intermediary services and paid financing service fees to the third - party institutions at a certain percentage of the financing amount." In the item of "other payables", Magic Core Technology emphasized again that "in March 2025, the company completed its Pre-IPO round of financing, and the amount of accrued but unpaid financing advisory fees was relatively large."

Approximately, the total FA fees for the recent primary - market financing of these two GPU companies, Magic Core Technology and Moore Threads, are about 200 million yuan. Although Magic Core Technology's fees seem to be slightly lower, the prospectus shows that Magic Core Technology had a larger financing scale than Moore Threads in the first quarter of this year. It completed two rounds of financing in three months:

In February, 18 entities, including Matrix Partners and Henan Science and Technology Investment, subscribed for 1.103742 million new shares of Magic Core Technology with a total of 1.395 billion yuan. In the Pre-IPO financing in March, another 67 entities, including Matrix Partners, Henan Science and Technology Investment, and CICC SAIC, invested a total of 7.221 billion yuan to subscribe for 5.051257 million new shares. The total amount of the two rounds of financing was 8.616 billion yuan. If, and I emphasize if, based on the total financing amount of 8.616 billion yuan, to be honest, the FA fee ratio of Magic Core Technology is not really high. After all, in the secondary - market IPO financing, the fees received by investment banks may be several times this ratio.

So, to summarize briefly: Moore Threads raised 5.2 billion yuan and should pay 127 million yuan in financing advisory fees; Magic Core Technology raised 7.2 billion yuan (8.6 billion yuan if the February round is included), and the corresponding financing advisory fees are tens of millions of yuan. In total, it's about 200 million yuan. It should be noted that these are the unpaid FA fees of the two companies and do not represent the total fees paid for this round of financing. More than one FA received this "huge fortune". The prospectus also clearly states that "the company hired multiple third - party institutions to provide services."

GPU Elimination Race: Rapid Financing for a Secure Future

Does the fact that FAs are making so much money mean that the entire industry is on the upswing? Not necessarily. It only shows that the Matthew effect is at play, and funds are increasingly concentrating on the top players. China Venture Capital reported that many institutions were scrambling to buy the old shares of Moore Threads (see "Investors Who Missed Cambricon Are Scrambling for Moore Threads' Old Shares"). This news is also confirmed in the prospectus.

For example, in October 2024, there were two share - transfer transactions of Moore Threads. Foshan Ruizhan bought 957,410 shares from Sunshine Ronghui at a price of 50 million yuan, with a per - share price of 52.22 yuan. Qingdao Xinding bought 837,734 shares from Boshi China Merchants at a price of 50 million yuan, with a per - share price of 59.68 yuan.

Magic Core Technology also had multiple share - transfer transactions in the second half of 2024. In August 2024, Chaos Investment under Ge Weidong acquired some old shares from Ningbo Fosun and Hainan Lishi. In January this year, Lenovo Zhongxiao and Zhenghe Qiyuan acquired old shares from CCTV Rongmei and Guosheng Chuanhe respectively.

The prices of these old shares are not cheap. For example, CCTV Rongmei transferred 38,017 shares of Magic Core Technology to Lenovo Zhongxiao at a price of 50 million yuan, with a per - share price of 1,315 yuan. Guosheng Chuanhe bought 9,184 shares at a price of 12.8 million yuan, with a per - share price of 1,394 yuan. Both prices are higher than the financing price of Magic Core Technology in February this year, which was 1,264 yuan per share. So, the word "scrambling" is quite appropriate.

Source: Magic Core Technology's prospectus

Then the question arises: Logically, both companies are very popular in the primary market and have an advantage in fundraising. Why do they still need to rely on FAs for financing?

This may be related to the high R & D investment and fierce market competition in the GPU industry. GPU R & D is a money - burning black hole. NVIDIA's R & D expenses in fiscal year 2025 reached as high as 12.914 billion US dollars. Although Chinese startups cannot be compared with NVIDIA, the proportion of R & D investment in revenue, especially for unprofitable companies, is definitely not small.

From 2022 to 2024, Moore Threads' R & D investment reached 3.81 billion yuan. This is more than six times the total revenue of 608 million yuan in three years and is also an important reason for the company's huge loss of 5 billion yuan in three years. Although Magic Core Technology's R & D expenses in three years are not as high as those of Moore Threads, they still reached 2.247 billion yuan, which is 2.8 times the total revenue of 796.4 million yuan in three years. The two companies are raising 8 billion and 3.9 billion yuan respectively through their IPOs, and most of the funds will be used for product R & D. It shows that the investment is huge and requires continuous capital support.

Secondly, it is because of the increasingly fierce market competition.

Undoubtedly, the Chinese GPU industry is experiencing a major boom. Moore Threads' revenue was 46 million yuan in 2022 and 438 million yuan in 2024, with a compound growth rate of 208.44%. Magic Core Technology's revenue was 40,000 yuan in 2022 and 743 million yuan in 2024, with a compound growth rate of 4309%. Both companies have achieved explosive growth. According to the data provided by Frost & Sullivan, the market size of domestic GPUs was 163.817 billion yuan in 2024 and is expected to grow to 1.363578 trillion yuan by 2029. The future market is even more promising.

However, the cruel reality is that the elimination race among startups has already begun. At the beginning of this year, Xiangdixian, known as the "Chongqing NVIDIA", had a thrilling "struggle for survival" story: in May last year, the company started large - scale layoffs, and there were even rumors in the market that it would "disband on the spot". It wasn't until it received an investment of "hundreds of millions of yuan" from companies such as Nanfu Battery in February this year that it was able to turn the corner.

When I wrote about Xiangdixian last time, a reader commented, "There are more than a hundred companies doing GPUs in China." Although the data is exaggerated, it undoubtedly reveals a concern - no matter how large the market is, it can't withstand an oversupply of players.

Besides Moore Threads and Magic Core Technology, among the "Four Leading GPU Companies", Biren Technology and Suiyuan Technology have already launched their IPOs. Many startups such as Tianshu Zhixin, Lisuan Technology, Xiwang, and Hanbo Semiconductor are catching up. Not to mention listed companies such as Hygon Information, Cambricon, Xin Yuan, and Jingjiawei.

So, for Moore Threads and Magic Core Technology, rapid financing is extremely important, whether it is for internal R & D needs or external market competition. "Having enough resources in hand brings peace of mind." This is not only an important guarantee for long - term investment but also a strategic reserve during the market opportunity period. Moreover, in the last round of financing of these two companies, more than 100 entities participated in total. The "Chinese NVIDIAs" have once again demonstrated their strong appeal in the primary market.

This article is from the WeChat official account "China Venture Capital", written by Yang Boyu and published by 36Kr with permission.