The "Double Carbon Star Species" finals concluded successfully: The annual Top 3 were announced with great significance, uncovering the new trends in double carbon venture capital.
It took 4 months, with more than 140 high-quality projects, and an expert jury from industry, academia, research, and investment... An innovation competition focusing on the dual-carbon theme has revealed the new trends and opportunities in the venture capital market.
On October 11, the final of the 3rd Dual-Carbon Star Species · Sustainable Innovation Competition, jointly organized by 36Kr, Orient Securities and its subsidiaries Dongzheng Innovation and Dongzheng Capital, was held in Shanghai. At the event site, 12 start-up companies that stood out from the previous stage made their appearances one by one, sharing their entrepreneurial visions and business progress, and showcasing the product technology advantages and commercialization capabilities of their companies.
Entering 2024, the dual-carbon track has built a new venture capital paradigm. On the one hand, "Investing early, investing in small projects, investing for the long term, and investing in hard technology" has become a definite trend and market consensus, and the focus of the investment side has shifted to the new green productive forces, promoting technological innovation with patient capital. On the other hand, a new round of industrial transformation and upgrading has released huge business opportunities. Each sub-segment in the entire industrial chain contains venture capital hotspots, attracting entrepreneurs to get involved.
Under such a trend background, the third "Dual-Carbon Star Species" Competition focuses on the three tracks of "Wind, Solar, Hydrogen, and Energy Storage Industry Chain, New Energy Vehicle Industry Chain, and Low-Carbon Technology Industry Chain", setting off an entrepreneurial trend towards green and new.
Since its official launch in June this year, the competition has attracted more than 140 entrepreneurial projects to sign up. After the layer-by-layer selection of the preliminary round, semi-final, and final, and under the multi-dimensional comprehensive evaluation of the expert panel, the 2024 Top 3 of the "Dual-Carbon Star Species" were heavily announced.
They are: Yunchu New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Dishi Technology Co., Ltd., and Shenzhen Chuangleng Technology Co., Ltd.
The "Dual-Carbon Star Species" Competition, which has been held for three consecutive years, is not only a competition field but also a market - from the track setting, the jury lineup, to the scoring criteria, and the winning enterprises, all aspects reflect the changes in market demand and industry trend dynamics - the competition has become the best window to understand the trends of the dual-carbon industry and grasp the venture capital hotspots.
At the final of this competition, in the roundtable discussion session with the theme of "Venture Capital Observation in the 2024 Dual-Carbon Track", Lu Jiangping, the Executive General Manager of Dongzheng Innovation, served as the host, and together with Liu Xiaokang, the Managing Director of Dongzheng Capital, Chen Bo, the Director of the Digital Finance Research Center of Central University of Finance and Economics, and the representatives of the Top 3 enterprises of the previous two competitions - Wang Wei, the founder and CEO of Zaichi Technology, and Wang Mengcheng, the Co-founder and Deputy General Manager of Lanyang Technology, they jointly discussed the new trends in the venture capital market under the dual-carbon theme.
In the 2024 dual-carbon venture capital market, experiencing transitions and reconstructions, it also breeds new opportunities and hopes. When the green innovation wave is surging, what new trends and directions worthy of attention are revealed by this competition?
01
The New Generation of Energy Technology Continues to be Hot
In October on the banks of the Huangpu River, the birth of dual-carbon stars was witnessed.
"What are the core technical barriers of the company?" "What stage has the product research and development and production line construction reached?" "How large is the market size of this business?" "What is the business model of the company?"...
At the "Dual-Carbon Star Species" final, members of the expert jury raised questions to the participating projects around key entrepreneurial issues such as competitive advantages, business models, and market size.
In fact, the shining of these entrepreneurial stars reflects the already changed industry hotspots and trends.
As responding to climate change has become a common challenge for humanity, an unprecedented energy transformation is taking place. Finding the path for the transformation and upgrading of the energy structure is a common proposition that the world is constantly exploring in depth.
Technological innovation has injected new momentum into this energy industry revolution. Especially in the new energy field represented by wind, solar, hydrogen, and energy storage, the new generation of technologies including perovskite, new energy storage, and energy digital solutions are continuously making breakthroughs and are accelerating commercialization and industrialization.
Correspondingly, these energy technology innovations have also ushered in huge market demands and become a hot venture capital track.
According to the "2023 - 2024 China New Energy Track Investment and Financing Report" released by IT Juzi, in recent years, the number of domestic new energy industry financing events has increased significantly. In 2023, 452 investment and financing events occurred, setting a historical high. From the perspective of the financing amount of the new energy in the primary market, since 2014, except for a slight decline in 2019, the rest of the years have shown a growth trend, reaching the peak in 2022 with a total financing amount of 157.088 billion yuan.
In this competition, the popular wind, solar, hydrogen, and energy storage track witnessed a fierce competition. Finally, Yunchu New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. became the leader in the next-generation energy technology entrepreneurship with its outstanding technical capabilities and product advantages.
02
New Energy Vehicles, The Details of the Industry Reveal the Truth
When the market competition of new energy vehicles enters a white-hot stage, green and intelligent have become the key words that affect the direction of the second half of the industry.
The new energy vehicle industry chain is long, with many upstream and downstream links. Among them, every sub-scene involving the green and intelligent upgrade of the industry contains venture capital opportunities and commercial potential, and is vibrant in the primary market.
According to the data released by IT Juzi on September 27 this year, since August 2023, a total of 219 investment events have occurred in the domestic new energy vehicle industry chain. In the recent August 2024, a total of 6 investment events occurred in the new energy vehicle industry chain.
The seemingly small and beautiful demand scenes in the industrial chain are actually related to the development direction of the trillion-yuan new energy vehicle industry.
Take the silicon nitride ceramic balls used in high-speed motors as an example. The traditional conventional bearing balls are mostly made of steel metal, and their performance is difficult to adapt to the high-speed operation and large heat generation of new energy vehicle motors. As the market's requirements for the performance and service life of component materials are getting higher and higher, the substitution of advanced materials has become an increasingly clear industry trend and a key force to promote the relevant technological progress and industrial upgrading.
At the final site of this competition, the new energy vehicle track showed an entrepreneurial competition focusing on each sub-link of the industrial chain. From ceramic substrates to automotive semiconductor lighting fixtures, and to various new materials, the entrepreneurial projects focused on sub-scenes to solve the real pain points of industrial transformation.
After a rigorous evaluation, Zhejiang Dishi Technology Co., Ltd. finally won with its keen market insight and excellent product technology strength.
03
Low-Carbon Technology, Creating a Green New World
In the era of carbon neutrality, energy conservation, carbon reduction, and green environmental protection have become the urgent needs of thousands of industries, containing a trillion-level market space behind them.
Under this definite trend, low-carbon technology has become a fertile venture capital hotspot, attracting a large number of entrepreneurs. However, it is worth noting that most of the green low-carbon technologies are still in the early stage of entrepreneurship. Whether the demand really exists, whether the technology has the potential for large-scale application, and how to calculate the economic account... These practical problems are a patience test for both entrepreneurs and investors.
This is the characteristic and charm of low-carbon technology investment and financing: Under patience, there are huge long-term returns and ultra-high technical barriers, and all these are outlining a green new picture belonging to the future with unlimited imagination space.
In this field, many globally renowned entrepreneurial stars have also emerged. From Helion Energy, a fusion company heavily bet by Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, to Climeworks, a carbon capture company that has signed cooperation agreements with Microsoft and other major companies, every new development of theirs will trigger industry discussions and capital attention.
In the low-carbon technology track of this final, a series of energy-saving and carbon-reducing innovation technologies with diverse application scenarios, from turning air into water, inventing the "artificial sun" to developing green refrigeration materials, are accelerating their implementation. After the comprehensive evaluation of the jury, Shenzhen Chuangleng Technology Co., Ltd. finally won with its advanced technology and grasp of the real scene demand.
With the final birth of the 2024 Top 3, the 3rd Dual-Carbon Star Species · Sustainable Innovation Competition jointly organized by 36Kr, Orient Securities and its subsidiaries Dongzheng Innovation and Dongzheng Capital has completed the entire process and ended successfully.
Over the past three years, the "Dual-Carbon Star Species" Competition has accompanied a series of high-quality projects to ride the waves and mature, growing into the most shining entrepreneurial stars. The sustainable innovation and development of the dual-carbon industry requires the continuous green venture capital force. In the future, the "Dual-Carbon Star Species" Competition will continue to focus on green and low-carbon innovation, discover more high-quality projects, and become their most determined companion - this is the original intention of the continuous holding of the competition, and is更是 a productivity leap towards a green and new future that reshapes the industry.
