The "Queen of Venture Capital" with $14 billion splashes out $300 million to make up for her regret.
Investing $300 million, "Queen of Venture Capital" Xu Xin, at the helm of Capital Today, makes up for the regret of missing out on ByteDance back then.
According to Bloomberg, recently, Capital Today acquired ByteDance shares that were originally priced at $200 million for $300 million.
It's worth mentioning that in a previous interview, Xu Xin revealed that she had contacted Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, earlier. At their first meeting, Zhang Yiming asked her for a staggering $7 billion.
However, as this asking price exceeded the understanding at that time, Xu Xin didn't make an investment back then. Despite missing out on Zhang Yiming for a while, Xu Xin is well - known for her "sharp investment vision" in the investment field.
From witnessing Wahaha's "top - level business operations" in the early days to accurately investing in internet giants such as NetEase, JD.com, and Meituan and getting extremely high returns later, Xu Xin has won resounding titles like "Queen of Venture Capital" and "Female Warren Buffett" with a series of brilliant investment records.
Now, Xu Xin re - enters the game and successfully pushes ByteDance's valuation up to $480 billion. Some analysts believe that the solid foundation supporting the further increase in ByteDance's valuation is the company's continuous and strong business growth and innovative breakthroughs in the field of AI technology.
In the newly released "Hurun Rich List 2025", Xu Xin ranks 481st with a fortune of 14 billion yuan, a 12% increase in wealth compared to the previous year; while Zhang Yiming ranks second on the list, with his fortune rising 34% year - on - year to 470 billion yuan.
"Queen of Venture Capital" Invests $300 million to Make Up for Past Regret
According to Bloomberg on November 20th, Capital Today recently purchased a large number of ByteDance shares. After this transaction was finalized, ByteDance's valuation was further raised to $480 billion (about 3.4 trillion yuan).
According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, the bidding process was rapid, with as many as seven bidders participating. The original price of this batch of shares was about $200 million, corresponding to a valuation of ByteDance of about $360 billion.
People familiar with the matter revealed that Capital Today, led by "Queen of Venture Capital" Xu Xin, finally defeated several competing bidders and acquired some of ByteDance's equity from BOC International at a price of about $300 million (about 2.132 billion yuan). BOC International is one of the early institutional investors in ByteDance.
It is reported that this transaction is one of the largest secondary - market transactions of ByteDance this year. According to Wall Street News, some analysts said that the fierce bidding in this auction may be due to the scarcity of this share sale and investors' recognition of ByteDance's AI technology and global business growth prospects.
Interestingly, Capital Today, which invested heavily in ByteDance this time, has an early connection with Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance. According to 21st Century Business Herald, Xu Xin, the founder of Capital Today, once recalled her first meeting with Zhang Yiming.
Xu Xin said that when she first met Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, "he asked for $7 billion", which really surprised her. "Because we invest in early - stage companies, I've never seen such an expensive price. Actually, I just didn't understand. There's a saying that you can't earn money beyond your cognitive scope."
Later, when studying the winner pattern, Xu Xin finally realized and understood the content and advertising model. "But I understood too late. By that time, Douyin's value had increased five - fold, and I missed the opportunity."
Leida Finance noticed that thanks to ByteDance's rapid development, Zhang Yiming's wealth has also increased significantly. In last year's "Hurun Rich List", Zhang Yiming once surpassed Zhong Shanshan, the "King of Bottled Water", with a fortune of 350 billion yuan and became the richest person in China.
In the "Hurun Rich List 2025" announced in October, Zhang Yiming's wealth soared again, reaching 470 billion yuan. However, his ranking on the list was overtaken by Zhong Shanshan (with a fortune of 530 billion yuan) and he ranked second.
ByteDance Focuses on AI, Valuation Nears OpenAI
According to CB Insights data, based on the current market valuation, ByteDance surpasses SpaceX (valued at about $400 billion) and ranks second in the global startup valuation list, only after OpenAI, which is valued at a staggering $500 billion.
In fact, ByteDance not only maintains its leading position in strong business fields such as short - video and e - commerce where it has been deeply involved for many years, but also takes frequent actions in the era of the rapid development of global AI technology.
ByteDance's full - scale promotion of AI business may be the key foundation for pushing its valuation further up to $480 billion.
Not long ago, in October, Zhang Yiming, who had been out of the public eye for more than four years, made a rare public appearance. At the opening ceremony of the Zhichun Innovation Center in Xuhui, Shanghai, Zhang Yiming talked a lot about his views on cultivating AI innovation talents and hoped to fully tap the potential of talents through the innovation center.
Leida Finance noticed that this is not the first time Zhang Yiming has signaled his attention to the AI field. In recent years, although he rarely appears in public, he has always closely monitored ByteDance's strategic layout and actual progress in AI business.
In June this year, according to Yicai Global, a source revealed that Zhang Yiming often travels between Beijing and Singapore, especially focusing on AI business. Since the second half of last year, he has participated in a review and discussion meeting of the Seed core technology team once a month.
ByteDance indeed intends to build its AI business into the company's next core growth engine and start a new chapter of development.
According to a report from Zheshang Securities, ByteDance's capital expenditure on AI in 2024 reached 80 billion yuan, close to the total of the three giants Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (about 100 billion yuan).
In 2025, ByteDance's investment in AI is expected to double to 150 - 160 billion yuan, with 90 billion yuan for the purchase of AI computing power cards and 70 billion yuan for the construction of data center infrastructure and supporting hardware.
With the support of its "financial strength", the gap between ByteDance and global leading AI companies is rapidly narrowing. At present, the products launched by ByteDance in fields such as cloud services and AI applications have shown strong competitiveness in their respective niches and have become important fulcrums for the implementation of the company's AI strategy.
At the Volcengine Force Conference in June this year, Liang Rubo, the CEO of ByteDance, announced that in 2024, ByteDance's self - owned cloud service, Volcengine, accounted for 46.4% of the market share in the public cloud large - model call volume in China. This proportion even exceeded the sum of Baidu and Alibaba, firmly sitting at the top of the industry.
Meanwhile, as of the end of May this year, the daily call volume of the Doubao large - model has soared to 16.4 trillion tokens, more than 130 times that at the initial release. In the global AI application product list in May, Doubao even surpassed DeepSeek and ranked fourth.
How was "Queen of Venture Capital" Xu Xin Made?
Although missing the opportunity to invest in Douyin before once made Xu Xin regretful, this investor, who is known as the "Queen of Venture Capital" and the "Female Warren Buffett" by the outside world, has a very fruitful resume.
Public information shows that in 1967, Xu Xin was born in Dazu, Chongqing. She attended Nankai Middle School in high school and was admitted to Nanjing University for college.
According to Business Magazine, in 1988, after graduating from the Department of Foreign Languages of Nanjing University, Xu Xin was assigned to work as a teller in the Bank of China. In this seemingly ordinary position, Xu Xin continued to shine and even won the honor of "March 8th Red - Banner Pacesetter".
Three years later, with excellent work performance, Xu Xin successfully won a training quota for a British chartered accountant and smoothly entered PricewaterhouseCoopers to work.
Recalling her experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Xu Xin once sighed with emotion: "The three years at PricewaterhouseCoopers were the three years when I made the greatest progress. I learned that work is not just about hard work, but about going all out."
In 1995, Xu Xin officially bid farewell to the auditing industry and entered Peregrine Investments, the largest local investment institution in Hong Kong, thus starting a new investment career.
Not long after switching to Peregrine Investments, Xu Xin handled the joint - venture case between Wahaha and Danone of France. At that time, Zong Qinghou was inspired by Evian mineral water during his inspection in France and keenly realized the huge potential of bottled water in the Chinese market. So, he resolutely decided to introduce this model to China and invested $30 million to establish Wahaha's bottled - water production line.
As an investor, Xu Xin fully supported Zong Qinghou's decision - making and actions. Wahaha's successful operation not only helped Zong Qinghou become the richest person on the Chinese mainland for a while but also brought Xu Xin substantial investment returns.
More importantly, this experience deepened her understanding of the Chinese consumer market and laid a solid foundation for her future achievements in the venture - capital field.
In 1998, Xu Xin joined Baring Private Equity Asia and served as the Managing Director of Baring China. One year later, with a discerning eye, Xu Xin chose to bet on Ding Lei and injected $5 million in venture capital into NetEase.
However, this investment was not smooth sailing. In 2000, NetEase was successfully listed on the NASDAQ, and its market value soared to more than $30 per share, but Xu Xin didn't cash out at this time.
Subsequently, the global internet encountered a bubble crisis, and NetEase's stock price dropped significantly, once falling below $1. Facing the doubts and pressure from shareholders, Xu Xin withstood numerous difficulties and firmly chose to wait patiently.
As the market environment gradually improved, NetEase's stock price began to rise. In 2004, Xu Xin cashed out decisively, bringing a return of up to 800% for shareholders.
In 2005, Xu Xin founded her own company, Capital Today. The most successful early investment of Capital Today was in JD.com.
In 2006, JD.com, which was in the early stage of entrepreneurship, urgently needed a large amount of capital support. When Liu Qiangdong was having a hard time finding investment, Xu Xin keenly discovered JD.com's huge development potential.
At that time, Xu Xin had a four - hour in - depth conversation with Liu Qiangdong. She not only decided to invest in JD.com on the spot but also offered to increase the investment amount. According to Xu Xin's recollection, "I asked him how much money he needed. He said $2 million. I said $2 million is not enough. I'll give you $10 million."
In May 2014, JD.com was officially listed on the NASDAQ in the United States, becoming the first comprehensive e - commerce platform in China to be successfully listed in the United States.
JD.com's successful entry into the capital market also brought Capital Today, which had been lurking behind it for many years, a book return of more than 150 times. Since then, Xu Xin established her status as the "Queen of Venture Capital".
Now, under Xu Xin's leadership, the investment portfolio of Capital Today, which has just turned 20 years old, is expanding day by day. According to Leida Finance from the official website, currently, Capital Today independently manages a $3 - billion fund.
According to Tianyancha, as of now, there have been more than 60 investment - related dynamics associated with Capital Today, including many star companies such as Meituan, Three Squirrels, NIO, Zhihu, BOSS Zhipin, and Dark Side of the Moon.
Now, after "making up for the regret" with a large - scale investment, can "Queen of Venture Capital" Xu Xin continue her past accurate vision of picking companies like NetEase and JD.com and gain substantial returns again from ByteDance's booming AI business? Leida Finance will continue to follow up.
This article is from the WeChat public account "Leida Finance". Author: Ding Yu, Editor: Meng Shuai. Republished by 36Kr with permission.