Exclusive | LightSail Technology Raises 130 Million Yuan in Three Months, with CATL, AfterShokz and Goertek Getting Involved

Text by | Xu Muxin

Exclusive news obtained by "An Yong Waves" reveals that Guangfan Technology, founded by Dong Hongguang, a member of Xiaomi's early startup team and the 89th employee, has rapidly completed two rounds of financing totaling 130 million RMB within three months, with a post - investment valuation exceeding 500 million RMB.

The investors include Burui Capital, AfterShokz, Tongge Venture Capital under Goertek, Qinghui Investment under Zhu Yiming of GigaDevice, and Lingyi Venture Capital. It has almost gathered the top terminal hardware, ODM, and core component manufacturers in the current wearable field. It is one of the rare new - generation AI native companies that best integrate industrial resources. In addition, leading financial funds such as CDH Investments, Alpha Startup Fund, Tsinghua - affiliated Inno Angel Fund, and Shuimu Tsinghua Alumni Fund are also among the shareholders.

In the current AI era, the rapid development of large models has made AI assistants possible, and human - machine interaction will transition from the past GUI interaction to AI multimodal interaction. It is reported that Guangfan's entrepreneurial direction is to build AI wearable hardware and general AI Agents for the next - generation human - machine interaction during the window period of AI hardware. Its core judgment is that within the next five years, wearable AI hardware will rapidly shift from "specialized functions" to "general intelligence", but the existing software system cannot support multimodal interaction and dynamic resource scheduling in the AI era.

The global AI hardware market is still in a state of intense exploration. On the one hand, a large number of traditional hardware still has no AI functions. On the other hand, the existing AI hardware generally faces problems such as poor software experience, few functions, and low - frequency usage.

This is why, when looking closely at the investors selected by Guangfan Technology, the industrial attributes are so obvious. AfterShokz, as the largest third - party headphone manufacturer, occupies more than 50% of the bone - conduction and open - ear headphone market. Goertek, as the leader in wearable ODM, and GigaDevice, as the leader in storage/integrated storage - computing chips, all have the ability to provide hardware support and hardware entry points for Guangfan. CATL, as a leading upstream core component manufacturer, can provide top - level resources in all aspects, including key devices, industrial resources, upstream and downstream ecosystems, and the capital market.

Guangfan's strong appeal in the capital market is also inseparable from the resume of its founder, Dong Hongguang. Dong Hongguang was a member of Xiaomi's startup team and the 89th employee. During his 14 - year tenure at Xiaomi, he was initially in charge of OS R & D and participated in building MIUI. Later, as the business leader, he led the incubation and implementation of core OS and application ecosystem businesses such as the fast - app ecosystem, Xiaomi's self - developed mobile phone and automotive OS. He is a rare person in China with the ability to self - develop a general OS from scratch and has complete operational experience.

At the same time, Guangfan's founding team is a typical "high - level team". The team brings together senior experts from companies such as Xiaomi, Huawei, ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent, with profound capabilities in AI software and hardware and application development. In recent years, entrepreneurship by senior executives has become common. According to IT Juzi data, in 2024, a total of 13 former senior executives of large companies chose to start businesses, and 11 of them were in the fields related to AI hardware or AIGC. Moreover, the backgrounds of founders are no longer limited to the traditional BAT. Senior executives leaving new - generation large companies such as Xiaomi and Li Auto, and even the "Six AI Dragons" are also highly concerned by the market and capital. This inevitably reminds people of the early entrepreneurial wave in the mobile Internet era, and the era scene of "big waters breed big fish and all gods fight in chaos" is coming again.

Currently, the AI hardware entrepreneurship landscape is divided into three parts: there are expensive embodied intelligence companies, large companies that enter the market by acquiring mature hardware teams to layout their own wearable entry points, and a group of startups that rely on agile innovation to quickly occupy niche markets.

From the financing speed, resource depth to the team background, Guangfan Technology already has the elements of a "star project". However, the war in AI hardware has just begun. Whether it can become a leader in the AI era still depends on its product implementation speed and ecological appeal. The only certainty is that this adventure driven by technological barriers and industrial resources has enabled it to take a seat at the table as a challenger.

This article is from the WeChat official account “An Yong Waves”. Author: An Yong. Republished by 36Kr with permission.