In the current investment circle, people are either very happy or unhappy.

In the current industry context where the financing market remains hot and valuations continue to break records, "the sharpness and tenacity of young investors" is a topic worthy of in - depth discussion. At the "20th China Investment Annual Conference · Annual Summit", Liu Yanqiu, the main writer of China Venture Capital News, had a dialogue with several post - 80s investors to share their respective observations and investment strategies.

Chen Yu, the managing partner of Yunqi Capital, took the lead in sharing his views. He frankly stated that the core pain points in the current market are the "lack of high - quality assets" and the "FOMO sentiment towards high - quality assets". Taking an embodied project incubated by his own firm as an example, he pointed out that behind the short - term soaring valuation is the market's eagerness for scarce and high - quality founders. Facing this situation, Chen Yu proposed a coping strategy of "creating opportunities rather than seeking opportunities". By incubating projects and integrating network resources, he locks in high - quality assets at a reasonable valuation, demonstrating a practical and flexible investment approach.

Huang Yungang, the managing partner of Source Code Rhythm, interpreted the market sentiment from a humorous perspective, summarizing the mindset of his peers as two extremes of "either happy or unhappy". He not only recognizes the value of the 0 - to - 1 stage in early - stage investment but also does not deny the potential of high - valuation projects. He believes that in early - stage investment, refining the direction is more important than the level of valuation, and one should balance sharp capture and rational judgment.

Liu Yiran, the managing partner of Yuanjing Capital, put forward a market attitude of "neither blindly believe nor completely disbelieve" from a cross - cycle perspective, emphasizing maintaining a stable investment rhythm during hot and cold cycles, not blindly following the trend or passively waiting and seeing. He believes that in the face of bubbles in multiple fields, focusing and in - depth exploration can improve judgment. At the same time, by constructing a reasonable investment portfolio to diversify risks, one can not only maintain the bottom line but also seize opportunities in the wave of technological iteration, demonstrating maturity and stability after experiencing market cycles.

Wu Chenyao, the managing partner of GGV Capital, and Zheng Xuanle, the founder and CEO of Light Source Capital, supplemented their understanding of the market from different dimensions: Wu Chenyao emphasized the importance of multi - stage layout and cognitive update, believing that the risk of missing out is greater than the risk of misjudgment at present. One should look beyond short - term valuation fluctuations and focus on the long - term market space; Zheng Xuanle, combining his multiple identities as an FA, investor, and incubator, pointed out the characteristic of the current market that "consensus and non - consensus coexist", believing that early - stage incubation and in - depth exploration of non - consensus tracks are the core opportunities for early - stage investors.

The following is the on - site transcript, organized by China Venture Capital News.

FOMO is one - sided fear - mongering

Liu Yanqiu: Good morning, everyone! The theme of our session today is "the sharpness and tenacity of young investors". You are all outstanding post - 80s investors, and this topic is particularly suitable for you. But before discussing this topic, let's talk about the market sentiment that many guests have mentioned in the past two days. The current financing is really very hot, constantly breaking records. However, in this situation, some investors may even find it difficult to make an investment decision. So, I'm really curious about your views on the current market sentiment. And in such a situation, what are our unique investment strategies? Mr. Chen, please set an example and introduce yourself by the way.

Chen Yu: Hello, everyone. I'm Chen Yu from Yunqi Capital, currently serving as the managing partner. Yunqi has been deeply involved in early - stage investment in the technology field for the past decade, managing 4 US dollar funds and 3 RMB funds. We also have a relatively systematic layout in popular fields such as embodied intelligence and the AI track recently.

Just now, we talked about the current market situation, and we also had some private exchanges. Overall, I think the current market has two prominent features:

One is the "lack of high - quality assets", and the other is the obvious FOMO sentiment towards a small number of high - quality assets.

For example, for an embodied project we recently incubated, the valuation in the first round was 200 million US dollars. Before the full delivery of the first - round investment, subsequent three rounds of financing had poured in one after another, and the valuation in the latest round has reached 1.2 billion US dollars.

In just a few months, there has been no qualitative change in the project itself, but the valuation has risen rapidly. In essence, it reflects the market's strong demand for scarce and high - quality founders.

In such an environment, although the size of our fund is not small, there is still a gap compared with some leading institutions. So, we are also thinking about adjusting our strategy - instead of passively seeking opportunities, we should actively "create opportunities".

Specifically, we have started to participate more in project incubation. In the past six months, we have incubated or are in the process of incubating about six projects. Most of these projects come from the network resources our team has accumulated in relevant fields over the years. We will work with recognized founders to jointly explore directions, build teams, assist in connecting supply - chain resources, and help complete financing from the early stage.

In this way, we can acquire a batch of high - quality assets at a relatively reasonable valuation stage. This is also our coping strategy in the current financing environment.

Liu Yanqiu: I see. Since the market is so hot and the valuations are so high, we have to go even earlier and get involved ourselves.

Chen Yu: Yes.

Liu Yanqiu: Okay, Mr. Huang.

Huang Yungang: Hello, everyone. I'm Huang Yungang. Source Code Rhythm is a new VC institution that spun off from Source Code Capital last year and started independent operations. Since last year, we have invested in many companies. Our positioning is early - stage investment. Similar to Yunqi, we prefer the first and second rounds of investment. Although we haven't been investing for a long time, some of the companies we invested in have seen several - fold increases in value. Once, I met a peer at an event. It was quite interesting. He said that the sentiment in the current situation can be divided into two categories. One is that if you invest first and then others invest, you will be very happy because the value will quickly increase by three or five times. The other is that if others invest first and then you invest, and the value also quickly increases by three to five times, you will be very unhappy. It's either extremely happy or extremely unhappy, just these two extremes. You should be very happy about that 1.2 - billion - dollar valuation.

Chen Yu: We are also incubating a project together. I believe we will be happy together.

Huang Yungang: Similar to Chen Yu, we may get more involved in some early - stage teams, helping them refine their ideas and correct their directions. In fact, the value of the 0 - to - 1 stage is always there. And at the beginning, they really need the help of good investors. Maybe the valuation is not the first consideration at that time, but it can't be too low either. However, if the direction is wrong, it will be even worse for them. So, it's about the fear of choosing the wrong industry.

On the other hand, in fact, sometimes high - valuation projects are not necessarily bad. There is non - consensus within the consensus, and the degree of consensus also varies. For example, some people think that a 1.2 - billion - dollar valuation is still really cheap. Maybe many people also invested in ByteDance when its valuation was much lower. Two years ago, people couldn't see clearly, but now they find it was a bargain. So, within the consensus, for funds of different sizes, the opportunities to believe in their own beliefs may be different. For example, we can invest in a project with a 1.2 - billion - dollar valuation, but we can't invest in many such projects, while Mr. Wu can invest in many.

So, we summarize it into two points. One is to go earlier, and the other is to selectively invest in projects that we think, although the absolute valuation is quite high, still have a large future space. So, it's not that we only invest in cheap projects; we also invest in good projects.

Liu Yanqiu: Interesting. I'll ask a tough question. Do you have more happy or unhappy moments recently?

Huang Yungang: Overall, I have more happy moments because we invest early. Chen Yu is already overjoyed.

Liu Yanqiu: Mr. Liu.

Liu Yiran: Hello, everyone. I'm Liu Yiran from Yuanjing Capital. Yuanjing Capital was established in 2015, and it has been more than a decade now. We have also reached the fourth - phase fund with a certain management scale of over 10 billion RMB. Over these years, we have experienced industrial fluctuations, market cycles, the emergence and burst of bubbles. All these experiences are now our psychological reserves. When facing market sentiment, each time it's a different topic, but there are some things that transcend the cycle, and there are similar points every time.

Facing the current market cycle sentiment, I'd like to share a few thoughts. First, neither blindly believe nor completely disbelieve. Most of the time, the emergence of a bubble is not completely without reason. Usually, it is accompanied by the iteration of the technological cycle and the rise of new teams. There must be some reasonable aspects. When the market is cold and everyone is pessimistic, there may still be opportunities. Many great returns may come from investments made when the market is cold. Regarding investment strategies and investment speed, we won't stop investing when the market is cold, nor will we invest recklessly when the market is hot. We should maintain a semi - vague attitude of neither blindly believing nor completely disbelieving and invest throughout the entire cycle. This can increase our ability to resist risks and the probability of hitting good projects.

Second, focus. Today, it's not just a small direction or a small thing that has a bubble. Bubbles have emerged in many areas. At this time, limited by your management scale, team, past resource cognition, etc., it's impossible to understand everything. If you are not very familiar with some directions and force yourself to get involved, it's easy to step on the peak of the market sentiment or fail to distinguish the quality of the bubble. If you selectively focus on some areas and explore them in - depth, at least in these fields, you will have stronger judgment. You will know how big the bubble is and whether there will still be a bubble after the investment. This is the result of a certain degree of focus. It's difficult to have exclusive networks and resources in every direction, so a certain degree of focus is very important.

Third, portfolio. When the technological cycle starts, it will change rapidly, and there will be multiple routes at the beginning. Even entrepreneurs and large companies may not be able to distinguish clearly. It's difficult for financial investment institutions to accurately hit the right target in the early stage. At this time, a well - thought - out and well - argued investment portfolio can help you make choices. For example, when investing in electric vehicles and autonomous driving in the past, we had different investment combinations for high - end, low - end, and vehicle - body aspects. Today, we also have a certain portfolio design for robots and AI.

This also enables us to have our own offensive and defensive strategies in the face of the overall market development.

Liu Yanqiu: Mr. Liu has presented a very systematic coping strategy. Mr. Wu.

Wu Chenyao: Hello, everyone. I'm Wu Chenyao from GGV Capital. GGV Capital has been established for more than 20 years and has cumulatively managed assets of about 37 billion RMB. We are a Multi - Stage institution. In response to market changes, we have always adhered to dual - currency investment and multi - stage investment, from the early stage to the mid - and late - stage, and even to the IPO stage. From the perspective of US dollars, we also try to expand asset categories. In addition to VC, we also have Venture Debt. All these are to create differentiation and try to provide different resources and experiences for entrepreneurs in today's hot financing market.

Speaking from the perspective of each investor, in the AI era, when asking entrepreneurs a question: "How quickly do you update your cognition, or what major cognitive updates have you had in the past six months?" This question also applies to investors. I've been evaluating. From initially being "FOMOed" and thinking that there is a bubble in the market to gradually discovering that there may be some internal logical changes. In the future AGI era, after people's imagination ceiling is lifted, we need to balance Type One Error and Type Two Error. We are always making this balance. Now, we are increasingly finding that the risk or cost of missing out seems to be greater than the risk of misjudgment. Using the term FOMO may not be appropriate now because it one - sidedly exaggerates fear. The little bit of greed contained in the fear is increasingly being replaced by the discovery of opportunities from technological iteration and long - term future paradigm changes. This situation often recurs in the VC industry. Projects may be over - valued or under - valued, and the market may be in a boom or a slump. This time, there seem to be some different factors. When evaluating this situation at this time, the term FOMO is not the only good way to describe the current mindset.

Liu Yanqiu: I understand that your strategy is to prefer making a wrong investment rather than missing an opportunity?

Wu Chenyao: We always have to choose between missing and passing up an opportunity, so it still depends on the odds and the winning rate. If the odds are very high, we shouldn't pay too much attention to what the valuation was in the past two weeks or how many times the valuation has increased in the past month. These pieces of information are already in the past when looking at the present. So, when looking at the future, I think we should focus more on the market space itself.

Liu Yanqiu: Thank you, Mr. Wu.

Zheng Xuanle: Hello, everyone. I'm Zheng Xuanle from Light Source Capital.

Light Source Capital was established in 2014 and currently has a leading FA business in China. At the beginning of 2025, we initiated and established the L2F Light Source Founders' Fund, which is positioned as the first Multi - Founders' Fund in China focusing on AI and frontier technologies. The LPs of the fund consist of more than 30 top - notch entrepreneurs and over 120 industrial partners in deep cooperation with Light Source. We are committed to fully empowering early - stage entrepreneurs with industrial resources and entrepreneurial experience. In 2023, Light Source began to explore the incubation business. The first project incubated by Light Source, Aishi Technology, has developed into a leading enterprise in the industry. In 2024, we officially established the 3i Industrial Innovation Incubator, and so far, we have cumulatively incubated nearly 20 excellent start - up companies. Many of these companies also have a lot of cooperation with you all here.

I very much agree with many of the views shared by the previous friends. With my multiple identities as an FA, investor, and incubator, I can sense two major characteristics of this wave of early - stage AI opportunities early on: One is the huge consensus - everyone believes that AI will change the world in ten years; the other is the existence of a large amount of non - consensus. I'm deeply impressed by three non - consensus areas:

The first is video generation. In early 2023, when we incubated Aishi Technology, almost no one in China paid attention to the video - generation track. It wasn't until February 2024 when Sora was released that the market realized that this was a track that was very likely to form a consensus. And today, many large domestic companies and start - up companies have made very significant progress in this field. From non - consensus to consensus, video generation is a typical example.

The second is large language models. Before MiniMax and Zhipu went public, we observed that many large - language - model start - up companies had difficulties in financing. Their business models were more B2B, and the monetization paths were not clear. It wasn't until the open - source ecosystem led by OpenClaw gradually matured that large - model companies began to show the commercial potential of a "power plant" - no sales team, no business - development costs, and the quality of the model determines everything. I really admire those institutions that dared to place bets when the ecosystem was not yet formed. They adhered to their cognition, chose to believe, and deserve to receive rich returns.

The third is embodied intelligence. All of you here, including Light Source, have a wide - ranging layout in the embodied field. The three business lines of Light Source, namely financial advisory, incubation, and investment, have served and invested in more than 20 embodied companies in total. But in early 2023, when Light Source and Source Code jointly participated in a currently leading embodied - intelligence company, the consensus on this track had not yet formed, and the project was still struggling. But soon, the consensus accelerated its formation. So, in our view, a track with clear signals but widespread non - consensus is an ideal state for early - stage investors.

To this day, there are still a large number of non - consensus tracks. Since AI, as a productive force, is widely influencing all industries, we firmly believe that many industries are worth being re - created with AI