Hefei's "Xianwei Gas" Completes Tens of Millions of Yuan in Series A+ Round Financing | Exclusive Report by 36Kr. It Offers the Most Comprehensive Range of Specialty Gases in the Industry and Has Supplied Many Industry Leaders.
Text | Liu Jingqiong
Editor | A Zhi
Cover Source | Provided by the enterprise
36Kr learned that Hefei Xianwei Semiconductor Materials Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xianwei Gas"), a supplier of high-purity electronic special gases, announced the completion of tens of millions of yuan in Series A+ financing. This round of financing was jointly led by Guoke Xinneng Venture Capital and Fengyuan Capital, with participation from October Capital and Wanxi State-owned Investment. The funds raised will be used to increase R & D investment, supplement the team, and provide working capital.
Founded in 2022, Xianwei Gas is an enterprise focusing on the R & D, production, storage, transportation, and analysis of high-purity electronic special gases, committed to promoting the solution to the problem of shortage of national strategic gas resources. Dong Yizhong, the founder and general manager, has worked for TSMC, Praxair, and South China Special Gases successively, with 20 years of experience in gas-related production R & D, product application, marketing, and team management. The founding team members have an average of over 20 years of work experience in leading chip and gas companies.
According to Dong Yizhong, Xianwei Gas's electronic special gases are mainly applied in high-tech industries such as integrated circuits, panel displays, and new energy. Some of the company's products have been mass-produced and are being supplied to leading customers in the industry. Currently, Xianwei Gas already has three production bases in Feidong, Anhui, Lu'an, Anhui, and Hefei Xinzhan, and is planning to build a new base. Among them, the Feidong production base was put into use in 2024, and the Lu'an and Xinzhan production bases are planned to be put into use in the second half of 2025.
Xianwei Gas packaging containers
Independently control the entire chain of "R & D, production, testing, analysis, and operation", with the most comprehensive range of special gas products in the industry
According to different application fields, special gases can be divided into electronic special gases and other special gases. Among them, electronic special gases account for the largest market share. In recent years, with the strong support of national policies, the downstream electronic semiconductor high-tech industries such as integrated circuits, display panels, LEDs, and photovoltaics have developed rapidly, which has reversely driven the continuous growth of the demand for electronic special gases. Dong Yizhong predicts that by around 2026, the domestic market scale of electronic special gases is expected to reach 30-40 billion yuan.
In the early years, the supply of domestic electronic special gases mainly relied on foreign companies, such as Linde from Germany, Air Liquide from France, Praxair from the United States, Air Products and Chemicals from the United States, and Taiyo Nippon Sanso from Japan. Since 2017, domestic special gas enterprises have entered the stage of large-scale achievement implementation. Products produced by enterprises represented by Nanda Optoelectronics, Huat Gas, and Jinhong Gas have gradually covered high-end processes and accelerated the substitution of imported products. However, domestic special gas enterprises generally have the problems of a single product line (the vast majority of enterprises only supply 1-3 types of gases) and weak professional service capabilities (mostly focusing on sales while ignoring links such as production, testing, analysis, storage, transportation, and customer experience).
Hefei, Wuhan, and Nanjing have a profound semiconductor industry foundation and have gathered a series of industry leaders such as Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd., ChangXin Memory Technologies, TSMC, BOE, and China Star Optoelectronics. These leading enterprises are very sensitive to small-probability events such as the yield rate of the pan-semiconductor industry. Therefore, they have high requirements for the response radius, timeliness, and comprehensive service capabilities of special gas service providers.
In this context, Xianwei Gas set its headquarters in Hefei. After several years of development, its product range has covered more than a hundred special gas products such as diffusion gases, etching gases, cleaning gases, and laser gases, making it the enterprise with the most comprehensive range of special gas products in the country at present. Its representative special gas products include SiH2CL2, NF3, SiCl4, HBr, BCL3, C2F6, C3F8, GeH4/H2, F2/N2, PH3/H2, F2/Kr/Ne, etc., which are mainly applied in the fields of integrated circuits and panel displays.
"The performance of the gases we produce can be comparable to that of international top special gas companies such as Linde from Germany, Air Liquide from France, Taiyo Nippon Sanso from Japan, and Shin-Etsu Chemical from Japan," Dong Yizhong added. It is reported that Xianwei Gas has independently controlled the entire chain of special gas R & D, production, testing, analysis, and storage and transportation, and has the comprehensive ability to provide professional gas services for the semiconductor field.
All three bases will be put into production this year, and have supplied to many industry leaders
Based on the characteristics of special gas production and transportation, in order to better serve customers in the East China region, Xianwei Gas has accelerated the construction of three production bases centered around Hefei to provide integrated services of electronic special gases for relevant enterprises in Hefei and the pan-Hefei region.
According to Dong Yizhong, the Feidong base is currently in use. According to the market price, the annual output value of the factory is planned to be about 350 million yuan, mainly responsible for the purification, packaging, and storage of etching gases and ultra-pure gases. The products include: C2F6, C4F8, Ar/Xe/Ne, ultra-pure O2, N2, Ar, He, CO2, etc., making it the exclusive supplier in the region.
The Hefei Xinzhan base is expected to be put into production in September. The annual output value is planned to be about 900 million yuan, mainly providing purification, mixing, packaging, and storage services for precursor gases, doping gases, etching gases, cleaning gases, and photolithography gases for the pan-semiconductor industry. There are more types of special gases than in the Feidong base. The Lu'an base, which will be put into production in November this year, has an annual output value planned to be about 500 million yuan, mainly providing purification, mixing, packaging, and storage services for highly toxic electronic special gases.
In terms of commercialization, Xianwei Gas focuses on high-tech industries such as integrated circuits, panel displays, and new energy. Its products have been certified by major customers and are being shipped. It is reported that the company has supplied products to customers such as Jianghuai Automobile, Volkswagen, ChangXin Integrated, Sanan Optoelectronics, and Xinjin Core Micro, and is also promoting cooperation with other leading integrated circuit and panel display enterprises simultaneously. In the photovoltaic sector, Tongwei Group, State Power Investment Corporation, and Xinjiang Taiwa New Energy are all customers of Xianwei Gas.
In the long run, Dong Yizhong believes that the integrated circuit and panel display fields will bring more revenue to the company, which is also the main competitiveness of the company's products. The semiconductor industry has higher requirements for the purity of electronic special gases, with larger overall procurement volumes and amounts. Currently, the Xianwei Gas team is in in-depth contact with BOE and TCL China Star Optoelectronics.
In nearly three years since its establishment, Xianwei Gas has completed two rounds of financing. Previous investors also include Hefei Innovation Investment and Xincheng Capital. It is reported that Xianwei Gas will start a new round of financing in July. Based on the focus of the application scenarios of electronic special gases, Xianwei Gas is in contact with more industrial investors.
Views of investors
Fang Jianhua, the founding partner of Guoke Xinneng Venture Capital: Electronic special gases can be regarded as the "food" of the electronics industry, and there is a strong demand for them in downstream industries such as new energy vehicles, photovoltaic cells, and semiconductors. Especially for diffusion gases with higher difficulty, their scarcity is more significant. The track where Xianwei Gas is located has great potential. The company's team has mastered the key technologies in the entire process of special gas synthesis, purification, and packaging, and has certain advantages in industrialization implementation and market competition. It has also made a lot of efforts in promoting domestic substitution. Guoke Xinneng Venture Capital will focus on developing new productive forces, and continuously support hard-tech enterprises to promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements through the empowerment of industrial resources and the promotion of venture capital.
Xia Lei, the project leader of Fengyuan Capital: As the "blood" of semiconductor manufacturing, electronic special gases have many segmented categories and a large market scale. At the same time, electronic special gases are typical hazardous chemicals, which not only highly depend on the enterprise's technology and process experience but also have extremely high requirements for the enterprise's production management, quality management, and professionalism of supporting services. Continuously increasing R & D investment and always maintaining professionalism are the keys for special gas enterprises to become bigger and stronger. The core team of Xianwei Gas comes from internationally renowned special gas enterprises, with profound technology and process experience. They also understand the high-quality and high-efficiency management systems of international large enterprises, as well as the professionalism and importance of supporting service systems. Relying on strong industrial resource support, Fengyuan Capital will continue to deeply empower Xianwei Gas in the future and expects Xianwei Gas to grow into a benchmark enterprise in the special gas industry.
