A domestic high-end semiconductor materials company secures over 100 million yuan in financing and gets bulk orders from leading customers | Exclusive from 36Kr

Author: Ou Xue

Editor: Yuan Silai

Yingke has learned that Beijing Xulun Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xulun Technology"), a Chinese semiconductor materials enterprise, recently completed strategic financing in Series A3 and A4 rounds with a total amount exceeding 100 million yuan. We have summarized the financing information of the latest two rounds and several highlights of the company:

Financing Amount and Leading Investment Institutions

Financing Amount: Exceeding 100 million yuan

Financing Rounds: Series A3 and A4

Investment Institutions: Invested by Novartis Capital, an industrial fund under Northern Huachuang, Beijing Electronic Control Industry Investment Fund, and Qianhai Ark Fund

Use of Funds: The funds will be mainly invested in the upgrading of production lines and supporting systems to seize the key opportunities in the large - scale market growth. At the same time, continuous efforts will be made in R & D innovation and talent building to provide strong support for long - term competitiveness.

Basic Company Information

Establishment Time: May 2022 (its predecessor team entered the semiconductor materials field in 2016)

Company Headquarters: Beijing

Core Products: Focus on polymer films/tapes required for advanced semiconductor packaging processes, including UV dicing tapes, DAF (Die Attach Film), IBF (Insulation Build - up Film), functional tapes for new energy vehicles, and liquid and film - type integrated circuit molding compounds, etc.

Technological Highlights: Based on the self - developed resin molecular structure design and synthesis preparation process, a "matrix - type" product platform from wafer grinding, cutting to chip mounting and stacking has been established. With its self - built complete application verification system and perfect process verification conditions, the company can efficiently cooperate with customers in joint development and achieve rapid product iteration. This comprehensive ability is leading in the domestic industry. It is the only domestic manufacturer that has achieved product commercialization in multiple key process scenarios of semiconductor packaging.

Product Applications: The products have fully covered key processes such as wafer thinning, cutting, chip mounting and stacking, and 2.5D/3D packaging, and are widely used in high - end manufacturing fields such as radio frequency, computing power, and storage chips.

Process Scale: Precision Cutting and Tension Control (Source/Enterprise)

Market Size

Semiconductor packaging materials, especially high - end functional films/tapes, have long been monopolized by Japanese enterprises, and the domestic production rate is extremely low. As the industrial chain pays increasing attention to self - control and the rapid expansion of domestic advanced packaging production capacity, the market's demand for high - performance domestic materials for substitution continues to heat up, and the industry has broad prospects.

Company Performance

As the products have been verified and introduced by many leading customers, the company's business has entered a stage of steady volume growth. Currently, the production capacity can reach a scale corresponding to a sales volume of about 500 million yuan.

Benefiting from the cooperation characteristics of "verification and introduction, continuous deepening" in the semiconductor materials industry, the company's products have passed the strict certification of many domestic leading customers and provide mass - production support and services for nearly 100 semiconductor leading enterprises, including Huahong, Yangtze Memory Technologies, BOE, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, Tongfu Microelectronics, GalaxyCore, and Maxscend Microelectronics.

Team Background

The founder, Zhu Hantao, has nearly 16 years of entrepreneurship experience. Since 2016, he has resolutely focused the entrepreneurship on the semiconductor materials field and led the team to continuously explore. The core technical team members are all from top domestic and foreign universities and research institutions and have rich industry - academia - research experience in materials science, chemical engineering and other fields.

The production management is led by experts with experience in precision manufacturing in Japanese enterprises, and the sales and marketing backbones have practical experience in top technology enterprises such as SAP and Samsung. This in - depth integration of "academic, industrial and market" genes has established Xulun Technology's unique closed - loop capabilities.

Founder's Thoughts

Zhu Hantao - Founder of Xulun Technology, Li Hongwei - Co - founder and Sales Director of Xulun Technology

Yingke: What are the core differential advantages of Xulun Technology compared with domestic and foreign peers?

Zhu Hantao: Our biggest feature is to use the product system of one company to compete with multiple professional Japanese manufacturers in the semiconductor film field. We start from the design of the most basic resin molecular structure and have established a full - range product matrix from wafer grinding, cutting to chip mounting and stacking.

For example, in the key material DAF for chip stacking, we are one of the few domestic enterprises that can independently produce both functional films and support carrier films. This "one - stop" product capability makes the supply chain management of customers simpler and more efficient when choosing domestic substitution solutions.

Yingke: Compared with Japanese manufacturers, what level have Xulun Technology's products reached in terms of technical indicators?

Li Hongwei: In some key products, we have achieved partial surpassing of Japanese manufacturers. For example, in some high - end grinding films for storage chips, the performance of our products has exceeded that of similar Japanese products; and for a series of wafer dicing tapes, customers have feedback that they are better than some Japanese manufacturers. Of course, we are still catch - up players overall, but in specific performance points that customers focus on, through in - depth collaborative development, we can already provide better solutions than Japanese manufacturers.

Yingke: What are the company's plans for the next few years?

Zhu Hantao: In the next few years, the company will focus on the technological deepening and market penetration of high - end semiconductor packaging materials and strive to establish significant competitive advantages in this domestic niche field. We are steadily promoting the customer verification and production capacity preparation of relevant products, aiming to achieve self - supply of key materials in high - end application scenarios and gradually enhance market influence. Based on the current technological progress and customer feedback, we are fully confident in this process. On this basis, our market expansion will follow the rhythm of being based in China and steadily going global. At present, the internationalization strategy focuses on "point - to - area", mainly by serving the production and R & D bases of international leading semiconductor enterprises in China, accumulating process understanding and cooperation trust, and then gradually extending to their overseas supply chains. At the same time, we are also actively contacting international packaging and testing partners. Relying on the cost - effective products and fast - response service advantages, we are exploring a broader market space.

Investors' Views

The person - in - charge of Beijing Electronic Control Industry Investment Fund said: "We invested in Xulun Technology because we value its strategic value in the core links of the industrial chain. As a strategic shareholder of leading enterprises in the display and semiconductor fields such as BOE and Yandong Microelectronics, Beijing Electronic Control has in - depth experience in the industrial ecosystem. We can not only bring capital but also accurately connect cutting - edge materials enterprises like Xulun with the broad downstream application markets such as panel display and sensors, providing a scarce entry point from product definition to scenario verification."

"We especially value the underlying innovation ability of the Xulun team in molecular design and material synthesis. This provides a solid technological foundation for them to enter high - end incremental markets such as automotive - grade chip packaging and third - generation semiconductors. We look forward to accelerating the implementation and iteration of Xulun's innovative materials in key application scenarios with the help of Beijing Electronic Control's industrial ecosystem resources and jointly improving the self - control level of the industrial chain."

Wang Yanwei, a partner of Novartis Capital, said: "Semiconductor film materials are key raw materials for advanced packaging, with high technical barriers, great R & D difficulties, and low domestic production rate. As a CVC industrial investment institution, we have long been concerned about breakthroughs in key fields such as materials, equipment, and components and have built an industrial chain ecosystem synergy around the strategic needs of Northern Huachuang."

"The Xulun Technology team has impressed us deeply. In a short period, they have achieved a complete closed - loop from technology R & D to product implementation and then to obtaining orders from leading customers in multiple semiconductor film categories, which proves that the team has excellent technological innovation ability, product engineering and industrialization capabilities. We believe that this round of investment will deepen the in - depth cooperation between the two sides at the capital and industrial levels, promote the integrated and coordinated development of domestic high - end semiconductor materials and equipment, and accelerate the construction of a domestic advanced packaging industrial chain and ecosystem."