When Magic Core went public, they invested in four new billion-dollar companies.
This scene is truly amazing.
With Moore Threads and MXIC going public one after another, two IPOs with a market value of 300 billion yuan were born on the STAR Market within just half a month, boiling the venture capital circle. Before that, the market values of Cambricon and Hygon Information once exceeded 600 billion yuan. So far, the total market value of the "Four Bigwigs in China's Computing Power" has exceeded 1.6 trillion yuan.
Few people noticed that when looking into the backgrounds of Cambricon, Hygon Information, Moore Threads, and MXIC, an unexpected common figure emerged - Legend Capital. After reviewing, it seems that Legend Capital is the only investment institution that has successfully invested in all four companies.
This is a surprising episode in the narrative of China's rise in computing power. Exclaiming at this, we try to restore this almost overlooked investment story.
From Cambricon to MXIC
Legend Capital, the Winner of Four Investments
Looking back, Legend Capital's investments were made in the "quiet corners" at that time.
Back in 2017, during the peak of the mobile Internet, the chip computing power track was almost ignored, and few investors focused on it. However, Legend Capital, which was newly established at that time, was an exception. Rooted in Lenovo Group's new IT strategy of "device - edge - cloud - network - intelligence", they regarded AI computing power as the "heart" of the intelligent world and predicted that the application - oriented large - scale computing would lead to a hundred - fold increase in computing power demand in the next decade.
The investment in Cambricon started one afternoon. The investment community once recorded this story: In 2017, He Zhiqiang, the president and founding partner of Legend Capital, first met Chen Tianshi at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "He doesn't talk much, with the typical temperament of a technical genius." After several exchanges, He Zhiqiang found that Chen Tianshi had good business sense, but the internal investment members still thought the valuation was high and hesitated for a while whether to bring the project to the investment decision - making meeting.
The value of Cambricon lies in that it was one of the very few pioneers in the Chinese market at that time, which designed and optimized specifically for artificial intelligence from the underlying instruction set and chip architecture levels. Later, after due diligence, Legend Capital dispelled its concerns and became the only investment institution that participated in all four rounds of Cambricon's financing starting from the Series A financing. Cambricon lived up to expectations, and its market value reached a peak of over 600 billion yuan this year.
As the "technology lookout tower" of Lenovo Group, Legend Capital began to systematically layout the computing power track following the same logic and quickly and keenly captured Hygon Information.
At that time, Hygon Information was one of the few enterprises with the R & D capabilities of both high - end CPUs and GPUs, but it had not yet shown the high - speed development trend in the following years. Wang Guangxi, the managing partner of Legend Capital, remembered that during a visit, Hygon Information had reached a certain scale, but was quite pragmatic in details. It actively tackled the "tough nuts" in product R & D, and its down - to - earth corporate culture was very distinct, never boasting. Eventually, Legend Capital made a decisive move.
Time has verified this choice. In September this year, the stock price of Hygon Information reached 270 yuan per share, more than seven times its issue price, and its market value once exceeded 600 billion yuan.
Looking back on the past decade, 2021 became the year when Legend Capital made intensive investments. In this year, they successively discovered Moore Threads and MXIC. At that time, domestic GPUs were still in the difficult concept verification stage, but Legend Capital still firmly invested in the Series A financing of both enterprises.
The underlying logic is the same - these two GPU enterprises have scarce and stable world - class technical teams with a complete GPU chip R & D cycle experience in China. "We saw the eve of the explosion of large models and the qualitative change in the demand for computing power from scientific research to industry." Legend Capital once shared internally.
So far, Legend Capital has built a computing power ecosystem, formed a technology - complementary matrix, and completed the key positioning before the explosion of large models - Cambricon focuses on AI - specific chips, aiming at algorithm efficiency; Hygon follows the x86 - compatible route, emphasizing a smooth ecological transition; Moore Threads develops all - function GPUs, covering graphics and computing; MXIC focuses on data - center GPUs, tackling high - performance training.
After review, we can find that there is actually no fixed pattern in early - stage investment. The high hit - rate of Legend Capital is not only due to its gene as a "technology - based CVC" but also to the long - standing characteristic of being a "research - driven" investment institution.
What few people outside know is that Legend Capital adheres to conducting in - depth industry research for three months from the end of December to February of the next year. During this period, it doesn't invest in any projects, and everyone immerses themselves in researching the industry. This has become an established "iron rule" internally: investors need to always keep an eye on original innovation projects to discover the next big trend.
Investing in a Computing Power Map
After sorting out, we can see that Legend Capital's computing power investment map is gradually unfolding.
Xinchi Technology is a typical early - stage investment by Legend Capital. At that time, the investment team was focusing on the layout of the electric vehicle industry chain, mainly targeting areas such as batteries, motors, electronic controls, intelligent driving computing power, and software. Thus, Xinchi, which focuses on in - vehicle computing scenarios, came into view.
Normally, Legend Capital holds two meetings for each investment: the first one is for concentrated discussion, and the second one is to meet the team. "But at that time, we decided to invest in Xinchi after the first meeting." The core team of Xinchi came from foreign giants and had years of experience. And Legend Capital had a clear judgment on the future demand for intelligent cockpits, so it made a decisive move. Later, Xinchi Technology rose rapidly. In July last year, it received a strategic investment of 1 billion yuan from the Beijing municipal and district governments, and its post - investment valuation exceeded 14 billion yuan.
Chipintelli Technology is also a name that cannot be ignored. It is an enterprise dedicated to the R & D of high - efficiency and intelligent general - purpose CPUs. Its AI CPU chip, "Chipintelli P1", has an edge - side AI heterogeneous computing power of 45 TOPS, meeting the 40 TOPS computing power requirement put forward by Windows AI PCs. It can run large models with up to 10 billion parameters on the edge side, and the throughput of running large language models can reach over 30 tokens/s. As early as the angel - round financing in 2021, Legend Capital took the lead in investing.
There is also a phenomenal project in this map - Wuxin Core Dome. In September last year, Wuxin Core Dome completed a nearly 500 million yuan Series A financing, and Legend Capital was among the investors. At this time, the company had only been established for one year and four months, but had accumulated nearly 1 billion yuan in financing. Subsequently, Legend Capital participated in Wuxin Core Dome's nearly 500 million yuan Series A+ financing in November this year.
In the view of Legend Capital, the development of large models has driven the transformation of the computing industry. Artificial intelligence and digital transformation require the support of infrastructure, and heterogeneous computing power is an important development direction in the current computing field. Wuxin Core Dome's forward - looking layout of the underlying infrastructure ecosystem of heterogeneous computing power serves large - model algorithm enterprises in various ways through intelligent computing cloud services, enabling the efficient implementation of industry - specific large models. This gives its solutions broad market potential and application prospects.
Looking around, Legend Capital's investment tentacles are reaching out to more cutting - edge directions, such as Houmo Intelligence and Jindie Space - Time.
Of course, making an investment is just the first step for a CVC. How to generate synergistic value is actually more crucial. Therefore, Legend Capital has found a unique way. Combining with Lenovo Group's global advantages, it provides scenarios, production and R & D, technology, and market channels, while the invested enterprises in turn feed back Lenovo's underlying computing power innovation capabilities.
For example, Cambricon chips are currently integrated into Lenovo's AI servers for smart cities and medical imaging; Hygon's CPUs/DCUs are used in Lenovo's super - computing clusters for scientific research and financial modeling; Moore Threads' GPUs are adapted to Lenovo's gaming laptops and workstations; and it also jointly launched the "DeepSeek Domestic AI All - in - One Machine" with MXIC.
The ecological effect of "1 + 1 > 2" is obvious. On the one hand, the invested enterprises have shortened the market verification period and achieved large - scale implementation; on the other hand, they have fed back Lenovo's full - industry - chain layout and enhanced the competitiveness of innovative technologies. The value created here undoubtedly far exceeds the book return.
There are many such ecological empowerment cases. In previous exchanges in the investment community, Legend Capital once said bluntly, "Promoting the ecological cooperation between the invested enterprises and Lenovo's business, and even promoting the invested enterprises to become the most important part of Lenovo's core business or core technology in the future, is the value manifestation of CVC that we have always pursued."
The Second Half of China's AI
Heavy Investment Here
"Where will the next investment go?" As we approach the end of 2025, this is a question that every investment institution will be asked.
Earlier this year, Legend Capital revealed to the investment community that it has always firmly believed that China has unique advantages in the era of "super - technology mega - projects" and has summarized opportunities in three key areas. One of them is the revolution of disruptive computing architectures, focusing on breakthroughs driven by technologies such as in - memory computing, quantum computing, RISC - V, and brain - inspired computing.
What this reflects is precisely the essence of the silicon - based intelligence revolution. After long - term thinking and research, Legend Capital firmly believes that the silicon - based revolution is very similar to the past industrial revolution, information revolution, and Internet revolution. All of them require a core technological variable and a new driving force, which is computing.
The word "computing" sounds simple, but there are many elements behind it. It includes advanced algorithms and high - density computing - today's concept of computing is different from that of 10 or 20 years ago. It is a more general concept that includes storage, computing, inter - communication, etc., which is also called high - density computing. At the same time, there is also high - quality data. These elements together constitute the computing base of AI in this wave of silicon - based intelligence revolution.
In addition, in the view of Legend Capital, a large number of AI terminals are also needed. For example, the AI - enabled transformation of Lenovo's existing devices, as well as the newly emerging wearable, embodied, and low - altitude devices, etc., will all become new types of AI terminals in the future. The combination of computing and new - type AI terminals can reshape the industrial chains of many industries in the digital and physical domains and even ultimately change the social organizational and productive relationships.
So, what drives the intelligent agents and enables so many AI terminals to provide value for us? All of this is inseparable from the continuous innovation of computing power, including the continuous emergence of AI algorithms and new underlying technology frameworks.
After careful sorting, we can find that Legend Capital's presence is widespread in many cutting - edge technology fields. For example, in disruptive technologies such as in - memory computing, quantum computing, RISC - V, and brain - inspired computing, Legend Capital has respectively invested in enterprises such as Huayi Quantum, Turing Quantum, Jindie Space - Time, and Qingcheng Extreme Intelligence.
Over the years, Legend Capital has always reminded itself that it must be more forward - looking and must jump out of the perspective and circle of its own industry to think about the technological frontier from a more independent and forward - looking perspective. Because if it always views problems from the perspective of Lenovo's main business, it may not be able to capture the future of technology.
As it is about to enter its 10th year, Legend Capital's evolution has left a deep impression on its peers -
In 2016, it decided internally to invest in the industrial Internet, AI 1.0, intelligent transportation, and new - energy vehicles;
Since 2017, it has judged that it is time to start investing in chip semiconductors. At that time, domestic chip investment was almost ignored due to the long cycle;
In the past few years, it started to layout the computing power field in advance, and in the past two years, it has bet on AI 2.0, Robot 2.0...
Following this context, it is almost a brief history of China's technological development in the past decade.
Ten years have passed in a flash, and the Chinese venture capital market has undergone ups and downs. History has proven countless times that only by timely and accurately adjusting strategies can one traverse the unpredictable time cycles. Now, a new chapter in China's technology investment is unfolding, and they are setting off again.
This article is from the WeChat public account "ChinaVenture" (ID: pedaily2012), author: Liu Bo, published by 36Kr with authorization.