Yuanma Lvdong has completed the first-phase fundraising of over $150 million for its fund and has initiated the fundraising for its RMB fund.
“Another oversubscribed early-stage US dollar fund.”
Recently, Yuanma Rhythm completed the fundraising for its first US dollar fund, with a total scale exceeding $150 million, surpassing the original target. The limited partners (LPs) include diverse entities such as Middle Eastern sovereign funds, globally renowned fund-of-funds, multinational corporations, industrial investors, global family offices, and well-known entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, Yuanma Rhythm has also officially launched the fundraising for its RMB fund to further improve its dual-currency layout.
“This fund received oversubscriptions from many LPs during the fundraising process, which not only reflects the trust in the Yuanma Rhythm team but also conveys the global capital's firm confidence in 'innovation originating from China,'” said Huang Yungang, the managing partner of Yuanma Rhythm. “However, in the super wave driven by AI, in-depth cognitive iteration is more important than simply piling up resources. Therefore, we ultimately chose to actively control the scale to maintain the acuteness and focus of our investments.”
It is understood that Yuanma Rhythm is the result of an internal startup within the VC business of Yuanma Capital and finally operates independently. It officially started independent operations in May 2025. Led by Huang Yungang, the fund focuses on early-stage investments, with independent fundraising and decision-making. The first US dollar fund will focus on AI, the biggest variable of the era, and mainly invest in three major fields: AI infrastructure and applications, robotics and hardware, and global expansion, to seek structural opportunities brought about by technological drivers. The core members of its team have participated in the investments in representative companies such as Kimi, Unitree, Galaxy Universal, Acceleration Evolution, and Sand.ai in their past investment experiences, accumulating solid practical experience in this field.
Huang Yungang specifically explained Yuanma Rhythm's investment logic: “We focus on three core dimensions. First, the originality of AI – instead of looking at the superficial packaging of 'AI +', we look at the substantial contribution of AI to the business model, the qualitative improvement of user experience, and the in-depth understanding of the technological evolution trend by the team. Second, the ability to break through paradigms, rather than making incremental improvements. We need to be able to break away from the existing framework and design products for the future, rather than making minor repairs to the old system.” Beyond the business model and products, Yuanma Rhythm also values whether entrepreneurs have a real sense of mission. “Don't start a business just for the sake of starting a business, otherwise, it's hard to go far.”
As of now, the first US dollar fund has invested in several early-stage projects. The first investment was made in Nuoyin Intelligence. Its founder, Li Yinchuan, used to work at Huawei and has unique insights and cutting-edge explorations on bringing embodied intelligence into households, which is still a non-consensus area in the industry at present. Another investment was in Kitar, a second-hand e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia. This platform brings the proven business model from China overseas and uses AI to reconstruct efficiency and experience.
“The former represents the technological frontier of non-consensus, and the latter represents the paradigm shift of model expansion overseas. These are exactly the big opportunities we are looking for,” Huang Yungang believes. “Currently, the changes in AI technology have reached the critical point of rapid penetration, and the new supply will bring a significant increase in productivity. China has an active innovation and entrepreneurship atmosphere, with both a solid technological foundation and entrepreneurial spirit. 'Many new products and great companies will emerge in the future.'”
Cao Yi, the founding partner of Yuanma Capital, also expressed strong support for Huang Yungang and Yuanma Rhythm. He believes that “AI will be a super wave, with great opportunities and rapid changes. This is not only an opportunity for AI startups but also for VC startups because in such a situation, cognition is more important than resources. Therefore, Yungang leading a lean team to establish Yuanma Rhythm, focusing on early-stage investments and deeply exploring and investing in AI startups at the front line, is the most effective way of cognitive iteration to cope with the current era, as well as a dual structure of focusing entrepreneurial spirit and energy.” Moreover, in the future, Yuanma Capital will still provide solid support for Yuanma Rhythm in terms of ecological resources and entrepreneur services.
Image source | Unsplash
This article is from the WeChat official account “Anchong Waves”, published by 36Kr with authorization.