Zhu Yiming is engaged in VC business and has prepared 5 billion yuan for DeepSeek.
Rumors about DeepSeek's IPO keep emerging, and one of the related updates is that a tycoon with a fortune of hundreds of billions of yuan is set to invest in Liang Wenfeng's project.
According to media reports, multiple industrial capitals have participated in DeepSeek's second round of financing, including Xixi Capital, SMC Capital, Boyu Capital, CPE Yuanfeng, and the state-owned investment platform of Hefei. Among them, Xixi Capital plans to contribute about 5 billion yuan.
Equity penetration data shows that Xixi Capital has close ties with GigaDevice, and Zhu Yiming, the founder of GigaDevice, is also the founder of Changxin Technology, a domestic DRAM giant that recently went public on the STAR Market.
A notable detail is that earlier, Liang Wenfeng had successfully subscribed for new shares of Changxin Technology through "Ningbo Magic Square Quant" and "Zhejiang Jiuzhang Asset" under his control, with a total allocated share of about 175 million yuan, making him the private equity institution that obtained the highest allotment ratio.
The two investments, backed by two heavyweight figures, make Xixi Capital's bet particularly eye-catching.
Xixi Capital Steps In, Plans to Invest in DeepSeek
As an investment institution established back in 2015, Xixi Capital is relatively unfamiliar to the VC circle.
Data from ChinaVenture CVSource shows that this is not an ordinary financial investment institution, but a CVC initiated by GigaDevice and the investment team, focusing on semiconductor industry investment.
The shareholding structure shows that Zhu Zheng is the beneficiary of Xixi Capital, holding 46.15% of the shares. Beijing Jiyi Enterprise Management Partnership (Limited Partnership) and Shanghai Shizhan Enterprise Management Center (Limited Partnership) are the other two major shareholders, holding 30.76% and 23.07% of the shares respectively.
Although the relationship between Xixi Capital and GigaDevice cannot be directly seen from the shareholding structure, as a listed company, GigaDevice's announcements have inadvertently "revealed" the connection between the two parties.
According to the announcements, as early as 2024, GigaDevice contributed 300 million yuan to participate in the establishment of "Hefei Xixi Giga Intelligent Venture Capital Fund", accounting for 27.47% of the total subscribed capital contribution of the fund and becoming the largest contributor. In 2026, GigaDevice invested another 400 million yuan to subscribe for a 25.87% stake in "Shanghai Xixi Giga Core Venture Capital Fund", becoming the largest LP of this fund.
Moreover, Zhu Yiming, the chairman and founder of GigaDevice, is also the actual controller of Hefei Xixi Changxin Enterprise Management Partnership (Limited Partnership), which was later renamed Hefei Qinghui Changxin Enterprise Management Partnership (Limited Partnership). In this fund, Zhu Yiming holds 51% of the equity, participated in the investment of Changxin Technology, and is one of the initial important investors.
This time, Xixi Capital appearing on the list of investors in negotiation for DeepSeek's second round of financing is obviously related to GigaDevice and Zhu Yiming. From the negotiation list of DeepSeek's second round of financing, it can be found that DeepSeek clearly tends to select industrial investment institutions that can provide empowerment from the upstream and downstream industrial chains. As the founder of Changxin Technology and GigaDevice, Zhu Yiming can fully meet DeepSeek's demands, and provide guarantees for DeepSeek's future industrial adaptation and independent supply in the field of memory chips.
At the same time, with the help of this domestic chip tycoon, Xixi Capital easily "crossed" the 5 billion yuan direct investment threshold set by Liang Wenfeng.
Xixi Capital Has a Track Record of Frequent STAR Market IPO Exits
While actively participating in DeepSeek's financing, Xixi Capital also has a hidden investment portfolio.
After sorting out public information, it is found that Xixi Capital has completed more than 80 investments so far, covering semiconductor equipment, semiconductor materials, chip design, electronic gases and other fields. Its latest investment is the A+ round financing of Guangchuan Technology, a joint venture established by Yaskawa Electric (a Japanese listed company, one of the four major robot families in the world) and Fortech (688409.SH) on August 26.
Before that, Xixi Capital also participated in the 2 billion yuan Series B financing of Qianhe Yibang, a 3D DRAM computing-in-memory enterprise, as well as Series A or A+ round financing of semiconductor enterprises such as Ruijie Robot, Corecheng Semiconductor, Lingrui Zhixin and Qingyun Technology.
Of course, the most notable part of these investments is the IPO projects harvested by Xixi Capital.
A benchmark case is Huahai Qingke (688120.SH) invested by Xixi Capital. In 2022, Xixi Capital appeared in the shareholder list of Huahai Qingke as the 10th largest shareholder. At that time, the latter was successfully listed on the STAR Market, and Xixi Capital held 1.88% of the shares.
According to the announcement of the Beijing Equity Exchange, this investment took place in 2020. In this public listing capital increase case involving state-owned assets, Xixi Capital, as one of the consortiums, invested 30 million yuan at a price of 20 yuan per share, corresponding to a pre-investment valuation of 1.2 billion yuan, and obtained 1.5 million shares.
On the first day of listing, Huahai Qingke's share price rose by more than 63% to close at 224.10 yuan per share, with a market value of 23.904 billion yuan, and the company's share price has maintained a stable trend since then. The 2023 semi-annual report shows that Xixi Capital has quietly exited and is no longer in the list of top ten shareholders of Huahai Qingke. This means that this investment has brought Xixi Capital a floating profit of more than 10 times at least.
Coincidentally, Sensemi (688213.SH) invested by Xixi Capital was also listed on the STAR Market in 2022. Xixi Capital appeared in the shareholder list of Sensemi through the entity "Sisi Management". From the timeline, Sisi Capital took shares in September 2020, and Sensemi went public in May 2022, with a shareholding period of less than two years.
Based on the previously disclosed shareholding cost of 50 million yuan, corresponding to the closing market value of 22.665 billion yuan of Sensemi on the first day of listing, calculated by the 0.42% shareholding ratio, the book return of this investment is also very considerable.
In addition, Xixi Capital also harvested the IPO of Grandsilicon (301095.SZ) in 2022. According to the prospectus of Grandsilicon, Xixi Capital, through "Shanghai Shili", transferred to take 290,248 yuan of capital contribution at a price of 37.5 million yuan in September 2020, accounting for 2.5% of the equity. The closing price of Grandsilicon on the first day of listing in August 2022 was 148.35 yuan, up 155.78% from the issue price of 58 yuan.
At that time, some media calculated that the return of some investment institutions exceeded 12 times within two years. Based on the 37.5 million yuan shareholding cost of "Shanghai Shili", this investment also obtained an investment return of about 13.6 times within 2 years.
The above IPO projects are only a part of Xixi Capital's IPO portfolio. Data shows that Xixi Capital has also obtained multiple IPO projects including Jingzhida (688627.SH), Guanggang Gas (688327.SH), Xingfu Electronics (688545.SH), Axera (02885.HK), and Huaqin Technology (603296.SH). Most of these projects are listed on the STAR Market, which makes Xixi Capital a well-known "harvester" of STAR Market IPOs.
Industrial Capital Is Rising Rapidly
Looking at the current VC circle, industrial capital has become an important force.
From the list of investors in negotiation for DeepSeek's second round of financing, it is not difficult to see that many institutions including Xixi Capital, SMC Capital, and Hefei state-owned investment platform have distinct industrial backgrounds or local industrial guidance attributes.
Among them, SMC Capital is backed by SMIC, Xixi Capital is initiated by GigaDevice, and the Hefei state-owned investment platform, known as the "most successful venture capital city", enters the market as the "operator" of urban industry.
This trend did not form overnight. Since hard technology and domestic substitution became investment hotspots, VC institutions have realized the importance of industrial cognition, as well as the core competitiveness brought by industrial investors, including technical understanding, industrial chain resources and industry connections.
In early 2026, the selection results of the third batch of sub-funds publicly announced by Shanghai's three leading industrial mother funds further illustrate this point.
The announcement shows that the four selected funds in the integrated circuit industry are all supported by important industrial parties. For example, Shanghai Lanqi Leading Industry Development and M&A Fund is initiated by Montage Technology, focusing on M&A strategies; Shanghai Xinlian Qichen Private Equity Investment Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership) is the CVC of Shanghai Advanced Integration — Xinlian Capital, whose main body is a vehicle-grade power chip manufacturer; Xixi Capital was also successfully selected relying on the industrial resources of GigaDevice.
In this context, the unique "grip" and "empowerment" of CVC have become the core competitiveness that distinguishes industrial capital from financial capital. Earlier, Gao Feng, a partner of Xixi Capital, said in an interview: "At present, there are not many high-quality projects in the semiconductor field, but there is abundant capital. So why should high-quality projects choose you to invest? This tests the ability of empowerment. You need to provide real help to the invested enterprises, which is far more than just providing capital."
This logic exactly answers the question of "why industrial capital is rising". In the past, VCs often said that they maintained close contact with industrial giants and understood their demands and pain points. But when industrial capital enters the market in person, this "understanding" becomes the most accurate "aiming" that hits the target directly.
This time, Zhu Yiming and GigaDevice plan to invest 5 billion yuan in DeepSeek's financing through Xixi Capital. To a certain extent, it is the most vivid footnote of this logic. When a person who has been deeply engaged in the field of memory chips and semiconductor manufacturing for decades heavily invests in an AI large model company, he essentially sees that AI large models will become a new growth space for the semiconductor industry in the future. This 5 billion yuan investment is not a pure financial investment, but an industrial investor's accurate judgment for the next development cycle.
This article is from the WeChat official account "ChinaVenture", the author is Chen Mei, the editor is Wang Qingwu, and 36Kr publishes this article with authorization.