In den Primärmärkten ist das "Gruppenbestellen" beliebt.

The list of investors in a project is getting longer and longer.

If you open the financing announcements of any star company in the past twelve months, you'll notice that it's not the financing amount that's most striking, but the list of investors. State funds, regional development funds, insurance institutions, industrial capital, leading venture - capital companies (VC), and old shareholders who co - invest can easily be compiled into a list of over ten or even over twenty institutions.

In January 2026, StarStep announced that it had completed a Series B+ financing round of over 5 billion yuan RMB. The participating institutions include the Shangguo Investment Leading Fund, China Life Equity Investment, Pudong Venture Capital, Xuhui Capital, Wuxi Liangxi Fund, Xiamen ITG, and industrial capital such as Huaqin Technology, as well as old shareholders like Tencent, Qiming Venture Partners, and Matrix Partners. Just the publicly announced institutions already number over ten, and the actual number of participants could be even higher.

Obviously, this is not an isolated case. The latest example occurred in April this year when Excellent Vision announced that it had completed a Series B1 financing round of nearly 1.5 billion yuan. The list of investors in this financing round includes tech giants, state funds, state - owned capital platforms, industrial capital, and listed financial institutions, a total of over ten institutions.

From the AI large - language - model industry to the embodied - intelligence industry, from the semiconductor to the biomedical industry, more and more financing cases have the same characteristic: A project is jointly financed by twenty institutions. If you were to summarize the current investment style of the market in one word, you could say that "co - investing" has become popular in the primary market.

The era of the "lead investor" is fading further into the distance

There was a time when it was an honor to be the lead investor.

An institution that takes a large stake, gets the best terms, and independently sets the price of a company was a symbol of the strength of a general partner (GP) in the golden era. But after the cold period in 2023 and the slow recovery in 2024, since the second half of 2025, the financing structure of the primary market has fundamentally changed.

The most direct signal comes from the "doubling" of the investor list. Take StarStep's Series B+ financing round as an example. In this 5 - billion - yuan deal, which breaks the record for single - financing in the AI large - language - model industry, at least three types of capital with different characteristics are gathered: City - level state capital in Shanghai, represented by the Shangguo Investment Leading Fund; insurance institutions, represented by China Life Equity Investment; and industrial capital, represented by Huaqin Technology. In addition, there are also the participations of market - oriented VC companies like Qiming and Matrix Partners.

Some industry observers describe this structure as "distributed and deep pockets". Similar scenarios often play out in the embodied - intelligence industry as well. On April 8th, SweetPotato Robotics announced that it had completed a Series B2 financing round of 150 million US dollars. This financing round was supported by strategic investors such as a retail - tech and supply - chain giant, the Prosperity7 Venture Capital Fund, and the Envision Group, as well as leading financial investors like MuHua Innovation Capital, Yunfeng Capital, T - Capital, LOOK CAPITAL, and Kay Lian Capital. Old shareholders like Hillhouse Capital, Hexuan Capital, Linear Capital, Huangpu River Capital, Didi, Matrix Partners, Cinnabar Capital, Plum Ventures, and Vertex Growth (subsidiary of Temasek) have continued to co - invest.

Financial capital, industrial giants, and state funds come together at the table. The number of investors in a single project usually exceeds five, and for top - notch projects, it easily exceeds double digits.

It's worth noting that this type of "co - investment" is not the optimal solution actively chosen by the investors, but the result of a majority - power game.

On the one hand, in the context of the shrinkage of managed capital and the cautious investments of limited partners (LP), individual institutions have only limited funds for single investments. On the other hand, the valuations of top - notch projects are very high, and the financing volumes of several billion yuan cannot be taken on by a single institution alone. The deeper reason is that when uncertainty becomes the norm, "risk - sharing" is not only the logic of asset allocation at the LP level but also penetrates into the single - investment decisions of GPs.

Data from Rongzhong shows that in 2025, a total of 103 new private fund managers were registered, representing a 13% decline in the growth rate compared to the previous year. These data reflect the strict regulatory strategy of the Asset Management Association of China (AMAC) in issuing licenses. From the composition of the newly registered fund managers with the top 20 managed capital amounts, three clear characteristics emerge: First, state - owned enterprises such as Guoxin, Chengneng, China Mobile, and Chengtong; second, regional investment platforms of local governments in the Yangtze River Delta region at the provincial and city levels; third, institutions that align with the country's important policy measures, such as the establishment of the Jiangsu Strategic Emerging Industry Fund and the setting up of several regional funds by social security funds last year. The new fund managers of institutions like Suzhou Venture Capital and Zhejiang Innovation Investment were established in this context.

In other words, the majority of the money in the industry is managed by state institutions. These funds inherently have the characteristic of "investing cautiously and diversifying portfolios". When they become the most important source of capital in the primary market, "co - investment" is almost inevitable. An investor active in the hard - tech industry admitted that in today's investment decision - making discussions, the most frequently asked question is not "Should we invest?", but "Who else is investing?". Investment decisions are evolving from independent judgments to collective confirmations.

Zhu Shan, the chairman of Rongzhong, said in his speech "Answers to 2025: The Development of the Chinese Private - Equity Landscape", that in contrast to the past, current investments in top - notch projects clearly have the characteristic of "cooperating and co - investing". The financiers of each company consist of multiple institutions, including industrial capital, state - owned investment platforms, financial institutions, and market - oriented investment institutions.

Who is "co - investing"?

The rise of "co - investment" actually reflects the profound reshaping of the capital structure in the primary market.

Looking back at the past ten years, the capital supply of the Chinese VC/PE market has experienced at least three major structural shifts. Around 2015, yuan - denominated funds rose, and state - sponsored development funds entered the market in large quantities. In 2018, the asset management regulatory policy came into effect, and channel funds such as bank asset management declined. Dollar - denominated funds once dominated the pricing of top - notch projects. Since 2023, with the continuous tightening of capital raising and the severe backlog in repayment, the market has entered a new phase where state capital has become the largest investor, insurance institutions are accelerating their entry into the market, and industrial capital has moved from a secondary role to the center stage.

This means that the profile of the "fund providers" and the preferences for "targets" in the primary market have completely changed - the LP structure dominated by state capital and the project structure dominated by hard - tech naturally give rise to the investment model of "multiple institutions working together".

Politically, "patient capital" has changed from a slogan to a mechanism. In the 2026 government work report, it was clearly stated: "Effectively utilize the national venture capital development fund, strongly promote venture capital and angel investment. State - owned investment funds should take the lead as patient capital and support more start - up companies to quickly develop into technology leaders." At the same time, it was required to "expand the repayment channels for private equity and venture capital funds and increase the proportion of direct financing and equity financing". This is the first time that so much has been said about the venture capital industry in the government work report.

In the institutional area, the national venture capital development fund launched in December 2025 has set a term of 20 years (10 - year investment period plus 10 - year repayment period) and requires that the sub - funds invest at least 70% of their capital in start - up and early - stage companies. This is a precise response to the long - standing problem of the mismatch between the 5 + 2 - year term of the funds and the growth cycle of the hard - tech industry.

These political signals have directly affected the ecosystems of financing negotiations on the front line of the primary market.

Data from Rongzhong shows that in January 2026, a total of 862 new investment events took place in the Chinese VC/PE market, and the investment amount was approximately 96.7 billion yuan. However, if you look more closely at the structure of the financing amounts, it becomes clear that the cold - hot difference is extremely large. The number of small deals under 50 million yuan and large deals over 1 billion yuan has increased significantly, while the number of medium - sized deals has been continuously decreasing. Even in the early angel and seed rounds of some projects, the financing amounts reach the order of hundreds of millions of yuan.

In other words, capital is concentrating at the two ends - either investing early in small companies or seed projects, with a few million yuan as a trial; or selecting top - notch projects and co - investing, where more than ten institutions together complete a large deal. The mid - growth projects, on the other hand, are the group that has the most difficulty raising capital.

This "dumbbell - shaped" capital distribution and the popularity of "co - investment" are causally related to each other.

When a large amount of capital in the market pursues a few projects with higher security, the financing of top - notch companies is no longer the "selection of investors", but the "distribution of quotas". In the latest financing round of an AI large - language - model company, over thirty institutions expressed an investment interest, but less than half of them finally got a quota. Under these supply - and - demand conditions, the selection criteria of start - up companies for investors also change.

Take StarStep as an example. Huaqin Technology, the global market leader in smartphone ODM, has joined the investor list, which fits well with its strategy of "AI plus end - devices". The participation of regional state - owned capitals such as the Wuxi Liangxi Fund and Xiamen ITG means that the company will receive more direct policy support in the Yangtze River Delta region and on the southeast coast in terms of industrial implementation.

The other side of "co - investment" may be that start - up companies actively build a network of capital connections.

How long can one "eat together"?

When "co - investment" becomes the norm, the rules of the primary market are rewritten.

The most direct impact occurs within investment institutions. In the past, the return of a project was directly related to the single - investment amount. The more you invested, the higher the return.

But today, in the situation of multiple institutions with distributed shares, the share of a single institution is greatly diluted. A simple example: In the era of the "lead investor", there used to be a dominant institution and several strong co - investors behind an IPO. But today, with the increasing number of investors, although the book return of the institutions may increase, after being divided among more participants, the average return of a single institution does not increase significantly.

The most direct impact is that even if a medium - sized VC invests in the next unicorn, if it only gets a quota of a few million yuan, the contribution to the overall return of the fund is quite limited. This means that the GP has to "place" on more projects to create a complete return map.

The investment logic is quietly changing from "concentrated investment in a few projects" to "wide dispersion and seizing shares". At first glance, this seems safer, but in reality, the project - selection efficiency and post - investment management capabilities of institutions are more highly demanded.

For start - up companies, "co - investment" is both a blessing and a concern. The good thing is that financing is no longer tied to a single institution. The diverse shareholder structure means a richer resource import and a more balanced power distribution. The 2026 government work report emphasizes "supporting more start - up companies to quickly develop into technology leaders". Diverse shareholders provide exactly the support for industrial synergy - state capital brings policy implementation channels, industrial capital brings orders from the entire value - creation chain, and market - oriented VC companies bring governance experience and brand building.

The latest example occurred on April 7th when the State - owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Shanghai issued the "Guidelines for Further Promoting the High - quality Development of Private Equity Funds of Companies under SASAC Supervision". It requires "encouraging supervised companies to establish venture capital funds and mainly invest early, in small companies, for the long - term, and in hard - tech projects", "encouraging leading companies to establish corporate venture capital funds (CVC funds) and promote innovation projects along the innovation chain", and "encouraging supervised companies to strengthen the establishment of S - funds and M&A funds".

But the other costs are also real: When a financing round involves over ten institutions, the complexity of contract negotiations increases exponentially, the processing takes significantly longer, and the founders have to spend a lot of time considering the demands of different investors.

What's even more worrying is that when the repayment channels are not fully opened yet, too many financial investors on the same stock list...