Venture Capital Insights for 2025 from 6 Top Investors | WAVES New Wave 2025

This is a new era for China's venture capital and investment industry. Currently, the Chinese venture capital market is not only at a turning point in the cycle bottoming process but also in a deepening period of structural transformation. In the new ecosystem dominated by policies and with a high concentration of state - owned assets and capital, only by conforming to the trend and making flexible adjustments can we seize certain opportunities in the face of uncertainties.

From June 11th to 12th, at the Liangzhu Culture and Art Center in Hangzhou, the 36Kr WAVES New Wave 2025 Conference, themed "New Era", brought together top investors in the venture capital field, founders of emerging enterprises, as well as scientists, creators, and scholars deeply involved in technology, innovation, and business. They jointly discussed cutting - edge issues such as AI technological innovation, the wave of globalization, and value re - evaluation, dissected their views on business ideals and the future world, and explored, together, the "New Era" of China's venture capital and investment.

On the morning of June 11th, in the investors' session, six leading domestic VC leaders, including Cao Guoxiong, the founding partner of Puhua Capital; Wang Xiao, the founder of Jiuhua Ventures; Xia Zhijin, the managing partner of Vertex Ventures; Song Chunyu, the vice - president of Lenovo Group, the chief investment officer and senior partner of Lenovo Capital and Incubation Group; Chen Wanxiang, the founding partner of Orient Fortune Capital; and Liu Yiran, the managing partner of Miracle Plus Capital, gathered for a wonderful round - table dialogue focusing on the front - line experience of venture capital in 2025. The dialogue was hosted by Chen Zhiyan, the main writer of "Undercurrent WAVES".

The scene of the round - table dialogue

The following is the transcript of the dialogue, edited by 36Kr:

Chen Zhiyan: Good morning, everyone. I'm very glad that you've come to the "New Era" conference of Undercurrent WAVES and very grateful for your support of 36Kr's event. In the previous dialogue, Mr. Li Wei introduced the 30 - year development of China's venture capital industry that we've witnessed. The majority of our panelists here are front - line investors (GPs) in China's current venture capital industry. Before we start this round - table dialogue, please introduce yourselves and the institutions you represent, starting with Yiran.

Liu Yiran: Thank you, host. I'm Liu Yiran from Miracle Plus Capital. Miracle Plus Capital is a venture capital institution founded in Hangzhou. It has been 10 years since our establishment in 2015. We mainly focus on early - stage VC investments. We are a dual - currency fund, managing both RMB and US dollar funds. So far, we've launched 4 US dollar funds and 4 RMB funds. Our origin is mainly in the Internet field, and now we're vigorously investing in intelligence and hard - tech. I'm very glad to communicate with you all.

Chen Wanxiang: Hello, everyone. I'm Chen Wanxiang from Orient Fortune Capital. Orient Fortune Capital is a market - oriented venture capital platform under Zhejiang Orient, a provincial - level state - owned listed company. Since its establishment in 2016, after nine years of development, our current management scale exceeds 15 billion yuan, and we've invested in more than 130 enterprises in total. Last year, we were short - listed as the manager of the National SME Development Fund. As an investment institution originating from Hangzhou and radiating across the country, Orient Fortune Capital focuses on fields such as advanced manufacturing and new materials, new - generation information technology, and life sciences, and mainly invests in early - and mid - stage projects. With our professional investment vision and resource integration ability, we continuously discover high - growth potential enterprises and inject impetus into industrial upgrading and innovation development. Thank you.

Song Chunyu: Hello, everyone. I'm Song Chunyu from Lenovo Capital and Incubation Group. I'm very glad to come to Hangzhou and meet you all. Lenovo Capital and Incubation Group is positioned as Lenovo Group's global technology industry fund (CVC). We fully integrate Lenovo's global resources and use investment and incubation as means to layout for the future of technology. For example, in the current Agent era and the AI 2.0 era, the entire ecosystem involved, including embodied intelligence and advanced AI medicine, are all our key investment directions. We've invested in more than 280 technology - innovative enterprises, mainly focusing on the VC stage, and also invest in some excellent technology enterprises in the growth and later stages. I'm very glad to have the opportunity to cooperate with you all. Thank you.

Xia Zhijin: Good morning, everyone. I'm Xia Zhijin from Vertex Ventures. Vertex Ventures entered the Chinese market in 2008 to conduct early - stage investments in the technology field. In the first ten years, we mainly managed US dollar funds, but in recent years, we've also been managing both US dollar and RMB funds. Our investment stage is mostly in the early stage, from the angel stage to the A and B rounds of technology projects. We have a strong connection with Hangzhou. We've invested in quite a few technology enterprises in Hangzhou. For example, we invested in Unitree Robotics more than five years ago, and now it has become very popular. I'm very glad to come to Hangzhou again and hope to have more exchanges with you all. Thank you!

Wang Xiao: Hello, everyone. I'm Wang Xiao, the founder of Jiuhua Ventures. Jiuhua Ventures has been established for 14 years, which is half of the eventful 30 - year period. I was a member of Baidu's founding team. In these 14 years, we've invested in about three to four hundred companies, all in the early stage. Just now, I saw a photo of me with Teacher Xu Xiaoping and Chen Keyi from XFUND. It was more than a decade ago. Now, Teacher Xu has stepped back from the front - line, but I'm still on the front - line looking for projects.

Cao Guoxiong: Hello, everyone. I'm Cao Guoxiong from Puhua Capital. Our headquarters is in Hangzhou. Puhua Capital has been established for 21 years. So far, we've invested in about 600 enterprises with a total investment of more than 30 billion yuan. We have four major investment groups: hard - tech, big health, new materials and new energy, and consumer culture. Thank you!

Chen Zhiyan: Thank you all for your introductions. Judging from the time you've spent in this industry, you can all be regarded as seniors, having experienced nearly half of the 30 - year development. I'd like to ask, you've all gone through many cycles in this industry, with ups and downs, and also experienced many years that were considered the most difficult, the coldest, and the most trying by the media and the public. It's already June this year, halfway through 2025, which has had a good start. Whether it's DeepSeek or Unitree Robotics, they've ignited a trend of re - evaluating the value of China's technology and related industries and technology projects.

I'd like to ask, from January this year until now, how do you feel about making investments this year? Have you really found more founders emerging? Are there better projects? Or is the so - called improvement just an illusion or a beautiful hope? I'd like to hear your feelings. Let's start with Mr. Cao.

Cao Guoxiong: Undoubtedly, the hottest investment tracks this year are AI and robotics - related fields. In the secondary market, the innovative drug sector has also seen a record - high number of overseas licensing transactions of Chinese innovative drugs this year. Due to the significant progress of Chinese innovative drugs "going global" and the record - high licensing fees, the biomedical sector, which has been in a slump for several years, is starting to warm up. As for whether there are more entrepreneurs recently, I haven't noticed a significant change. Generally speaking, despite the favorable policies supporting entrepreneurship, the overall market is still challenging.

Chen Zhiyan: It seems a long and arduous journey, Mr. Wang.

Wang Xiao: After September last year, I think the market has been undergoing some reversals. I remember that in May and June last year, we held an internal strategic meeting to discuss the issue of confidence. I said that we must keep investing and maintaining the rhythm is very important, just like running. So we specifically held a strategic meeting with the core theme of how to strengthen our confidence and keep investing firmly and moving forward.

I think early - stage investment should span cycles. Fluctuations are normal, but we must have confidence. Especially in May and June last year, I felt that the investment confidence in the market was low, and there were fewer investment deals. Even some of the most optimistic early - stage institutions began to lose confidence, which is a very scary thing.

If everyone stops investing, I think the whole market will come to a standstill. However, the development of technology requires long - term and continuous investment, rather than investing only when it's hot this year and stopping when it's not. How can startups develop if the funds supporting them keep coming and going? It's extremely difficult. I feel that new hotspots have emerged since the first half of this year. Robotics and artificial intelligence have boosted the market. I hope this will gradually spread to more fields, rather than being limited to just one or two areas.

Song Chunyu: I fully agree with the views of the other guests. Although the international situation remains very volatile in 2025, I believe that China has entered a new cycle of technological innovation. In the past few years, many VC investments were concentrated in the field of domestic substitution, which requires a large amount of capital and is more of a consensus - based investment. However, in 2025, DeepSeek has ignited a huge opportunity for a new wave of innovation in China, and most importantly, it has restored market confidence. I fully agree with Mr. Xia that the acceptance levels of entrepreneurs, investors, and market users have all reached a very high level. Take embodied intelligence as an example. We've been investing in embodied intelligence for 10 years. In the early days, most of the entrepreneurs were from research institutions and university professors. But in 2025, people like Chen Yilun and Li Zhenyu from Tashi Technology. One has a background in DJI and was also the person - in - charge of Huawei's intelligent driving technology, and the other was the person - in - charge of Baidu's intelligent driving technology. And also the person - in - charge of Momenta's intelligent driving technology. These industry experts have all joined the field, pushing embodied intelligence to a new height of innovation. These all represent China's leading - edge innovation in the world.

In addition, this year, Insta360 listed on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange with a market value of more than 70 billion yuan. This project is positioned in consumer technology. The so - called "three consumer stocks in Hong Kong" also reflect that consumers are willing to pay for the final product quality. With such a large market in China, there must be many innovation opportunities in the consumer technology field. However, entrepreneurs need to have the determination to persevere until success. For example, Pop Mart became popular in the second half of last year, but its founder Wang Ning started to lay the foundation seven or eight years ago. It took such a long time for the transformation. So this era also places very high requirements on entrepreneurs, which is the most profound impression I've got.

Chen Wanxiang: Hello, everyone. As an industry practitioner in the investment field, I'd like to share my recent observations and thoughts from three dimensions.

First, in terms of industry activity, this year has shown a significantly high - intensity trend. Take our institution in Hangzhou as an example. Since the Spring Festival, our schedule has been fully booked with visitors from all over the country every day. Frequent business trips, meetings, and high - intensity work have become the norm in the industry.

Second, for professional investment institutions, the impact of short - term market fluctuations is limited. The funds we manage are oriented towards long - term investments. Whether it's the market fluctuations caused by monetary policy adjustments or the short - term ups and downs of the stock market, the impact on an 8 - year - term fund can be ignored. Therefore, in our investment decisions, we always keep the weight of short - term variables at a relatively low level.

Third, the cycle law is an important factor that cannot be ignored in investment. Emotions, technology, and the market all have periodic fluctuations, following the law of "things turn for the better after reaching the extreme". As professional investors, the key is to stick to our investment strategies during market troughs and avoid leaving the market due to short - term difficulties; during the up - cycle, we should remain rational and avoid excessive optimism. By adopting such cycle - coping strategies, we can expect to achieve long - term and stable investment returns.

Liu Yiran: I'd like to briefly share our feelings. I think we unexpectedly saw a small peak in some projects in the first half of this year. Indeed, some projects were able to receive seven or eight term sheets within a month of their emergence. For some projects, we had to quickly submit them to the investment committee after just one or two meetings, because otherwise, it would be too late. In fact, many of the institutions here have participated in these projects. So what we've seen are the signs of a bull market. Although it's not everywhere, there is definitely an obvious recovery.

Chen Zhiyan: I can sense that you all have a feeling of "ice and fire coexisting". In some investment tracks, investment managers from investment institutions may be in a state of inactivity. In tracks like AI and embodied intelligence, star companies are definitely attracting a large number of investors. We've mentioned that the main theme of China's current venture capital is centered around the broad category of technology, which is also the social significance that VC was initially expected to carry. You need to promote the technological progress of a region, or even the whole humanity, promote innovation, and believe in the power of innovation.

We've found that it's quite difficult to believe in long - term innovation and technology when the overall environment is relatively challenging. There are also issues such as exit strategies and fundraising. I'd like to ask, after years of investing in technology, have you summarized any secrets or methods for technology investment that you can share with us? It can be about mindset or technical aspects. How can we invest in technology well? Have you ever fallen into any misunderstandings? Let's start with Mr. Xia.

Xia Zhijin: This question seems a bit difficult. We've been doing technology investment for more than 15 years. I think as investors, we need to be more patient. As mentioned before, the best time to invest is definitely not when the trend is at its peak. We should make early layouts, especially for those of us who invest in early - stage or even angel - stage projects. I'd like to say that in early - stage investment, we should seek certainty in the big picture but seek innovation in the selection of specific tracks or projects.

The so - called big - picture certainty means that if we're optimistic about artificial intelligence, which is a very broad field, or the semiconductor industry chain, which is also one of our major investment directions. If we're certain about the direction, we can invest and make long - term layouts without being affected by short - term external and environmental factors.