The 17 companies in which GL Ventures has repeatedly increased its holdings

One Fiftieth

We reorganized all the investment records of GL Ventures and GL Investments (commonly known as Hillhouse Capital, collectively referred to as GL Ventures hereinafter) in the IT Juzi database starting from the first deal, to figure out which companies it has repeatedly placed bets on.

Data shows that its earliest investment dates back to January 2005, targeting Tencent, the year GL Ventures was just founded.

In the nine years from 2005 to 2013, there were only 4 records in the database in total: Tencent, Blue Moon, JD.com, and Qunar. GL Ventures did not start large-scale primary market investment until 2014, when it made 13 investments.

As of November 2026, there are 1,167 non-duplicate records in total, covering 842 companies.

Among these 842 companies, 599 received only one investment from GL Ventures, accounting for 70%; 187 received two investments, and 39 received three investments.

Only 17 companies have received more than four investments.

The numbers form a funnel: 842 → 243 → 56 → 17. For every 50 companies GL Ventures invests in, only 1 is worth a fourth follow-on investment.

The 17 companies are: Monster Charge (7 investments); Fourier Intelligence (6 investments); Horizon Robotics, Mobike, DriveStack, MiniMax (5 investments each); the remaining 11 companies received 4 investments each, namely BeiGene, CarDekho, KE Group, Deep Data, MOODY, Epitop Technology, J&T Express, StarryMed, Star Atlas, DBot Robotics, and OptiLink Semicon.

Viewed by Year, the Conclusion Will Reverse

The 6 companies that GL Ventures began to invest in and made multiple investments in from 2014 to 2017 have all found exit paths now: 4 of them, BeiGene, Horizon Robotics, KE Group, and Monster Charge, are listed; Mobike was acquired by Meituan in April 2018, and CarDekho submitted its listing application in the third quarter of 2026. 3 of these 6 companies were invested in by GL Ventures at Series A or earlier rounds.

Among the 7 companies that received their first investment from 2018 to 2021, only 2, Deep Data and J&T Express, are currently listed. The public financing of MOODY, DriveStack, and Epitop Technology stopped in 2021, and they have not received new funds since then; StarryMed is still in operation; Fourier Intelligence has changed its overseas entity to continue financing.

From 2022 to 2023, the only company that received multiple participations in financing was MiniMax, which was listed in January 2026.

The 3 companies after 2024 — Star Atlas, DBot Robotics, and OptiLink Semicon — are all still in the financing stage.

For the same action of "investing more than four times", GL Ventures achieved 6 out of 6 successful exits from 2014 to 2017, but only 2 out of 7 from 2018 to 2021.

What widens the gap is not judgment, but the cycle. From 2018 to 2021, the valuation of the primary market was at its highest level. Most of the companies that GL Ventures heavily invested in during that period were leading players in their respective niche tracks; once the industry trend reversed, their valuations and financing rhythms changed accordingly.

Four Outcomes for the 17 Companies

The 17 companies heavily backed by GL Ventures in the primary market have reached four different statuses today: 7 are listed, 1 is acquired, 6 are still in financing, and 3 have suspended financing since 2021.

First, let's look at the general table.

Category 1: 7 Companies That Have Completed Listing

The 7 companies are distributed across three markets: Horizon Robotics, J&T Express, Deep Data, and MiniMax are listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange; KE Group and Monster Charge are listed on the US stock market; BeiGene is listed on the US stock market, Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and Shanghai Sci-Tech Innovation Board.

BeiGene is the one that GL Ventures has held the longest among the 17 companies. GL Ventures entered at Series A in November 2014, and did not miss any of the following 8 rounds of financing, with a cumulative investment of more than 1.3 billion US dollars. Its peak shareholding reached 12.21%, making it the only full-course lead investor for the company in China. The company was first listed on NASDAQ in 2016, then on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2018, and then on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board in 2021. GL Ventures began to sell its shares in batches from 2023. By May 2025, its shareholding dropped to 4.89%, exiting the list of shareholders holding more than 5%, with a cumulative cash-out of more than 10.6 billion Hong Kong dollars. It took 11 years from entry to almost full exit.

Horizon Robotics is the company that GL Ventures has accompanied for the longest time. It entered at the seed round in September 2015, when the company was less than a year old; then it invested in two Series A+ rounds in 2017, Series B in 2020, and Series C in July 2022. The five investments spanned 82 months, the longest span among the 17 companies. Horizon Robotics was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in October 2024. GL Ventures held a 4.04% stake before its IPO, and Liang Li himself still serves as a non-executive director on the board. It took the company a full nine years to go from the seed round to IPO.

For the Deep Data deal, GL Ventures' patience was pushed to the limit. It entered at the Pre-A round in March 2019, and the four investments stopped in March 2021, with no movement for the next four and a half years. It was not until October 2025 that it was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with an issue price of 26.66 Hong Kong dollars, 7,568 times over-subscription for public offering, and a 150.6% increase on the first day. GL Ventures held a 5.0% stake. It took six years and seven months from the first entry to the listing bell ringing.

MiniMax is the fastest company to complete the closed loop in this group. GL Ventures entered at Series A in March 2022, and followed up with five investments in two years, the last one being the strategic investment in March 2024. It was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 9, 2026, with an issue price of 165 Hong Kong dollars, raising 4.189 billion Hong Kong dollars, up 78% on the first day, and its market value once rushed to 90.9 billion Hong Kong dollars. GL Ventures held a 1.23% stake before IPO, which was diluted to 1.11% after listing. It took three years and ten months from entry to listing.

KE Group is the single largest bet GL Ventures placed in this group. It entered at Series B in April 2016, followed by strategic investment in November 2017, and consecutive investments in Series D and D+ in July and November 2019. The total amount of the corresponding full rounds of financing for the four deals reached 29.28 billion yuan, the highest among the 17 companies. KE Group was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in August 2020. GL Ventures held a 5.3% stake before IPO, and later reduced its holdings all the way to 3.3%.

Monster Charge is the company that GL Ventures made the most frequent investments in, and it is also the only one among the 7 companies that was delisted after listing. GL Ventures entered at the angel round in April 2017, and followed up all the way through Series A, B, B+, C, D to the cornerstone round before listing, with seven investments in four years, none missed. It was listed on NASDAQ in April 2021 with a market value of 2.1 billion US dollars. GL Ventures held a 12.3% stake and was the second largest shareholder. It was privatized and delisted on April 28, 2026, and the market value on the last trading day was only 303 million US dollars.

J&T Express is the company among the 7 that GL Ventures entered latest. It did not enter at Series B+ until February 2021, followed by Series C in March 2022, Series D in June 2023, and the cornerstone round in October, with four investments spanning 32 months. It was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in October 2023. GL Ventures held a 2.00% stake before IPO and was one of the nine cornerstone investors. The company was founded as early as 2007, and it had been operating for 14 years when GL Ventures entered. It is the only company among the 17 that had been established for more than 10 years when GL Ventures took a stake.

Putting the shareholdings of the seven companies together, the gap is clear at a glance:

The highest shareholding is 12.21% for BeiGene and 12.3% for Monster Charge, and the lowest is 2.00% for J&T Express and 1.23% for MiniMax, with a sixfold difference. There is only one reason: entry position. BeiGene and Monster Charge were both invested in by GL Ventures from the earliest rounds and received full follow-on investments, so their share capital was not diluted by external capital; when GL Ventures entered J&T Express, the company was already mature, so it could only get 2% of the shares; although GL Ventures entered MiniMax at Series A, the company raised 30.29 billion yuan in two years, the share capital expanded too fast, and the shareholding was suppressed to 1.23%.

Even with 4 to 7 investments, the final shareholding differs by six times. This has nothing to do with whether the institution is optimistic about the project, but with the position where it stands.

Category 2: 1 Company That Was Fully Acquired

Mobike is the only company among the 17 that was fully acquired. This shared bicycle company was founded in 2015 and soon became one of the two duopoly players alongside ofo in the shared bicycle war.

In September 2016, GL Ventures led the Series C round, and in the following nine months, it followed up all four rounds of Mobike's C+, D, D+, and E, with an average interval of just over two months between the five investments. It also has the densest investment rhythm among the 17 companies.

In April 2018, Meituan launched an acquisition at a price of 3.7 billion US dollars. After deducting 1 billion US dollars of debt, the actual consideration was 2.7 billion US dollars, and investors cashed out all their shares at one time. It took GL Ventures 19 months from entry to exit.

This investment got results without waiting for an IPO. It has a short path and high certainty, but the upper limit of returns is also locked by the acquisition price.

Looking back at the shared bicycle war, Mobike's outcome can be regarded as decent. From 2016 to 2017, more than 70 shared bicycle brands popped up in the market, in all kinds of colors. The earliest batch — Wukong, Dingding, 3Vbike — ceased operations in 2017; Xiaoming, Kuqi, and Xiaolan then fell into deposit predicaments. The biggest competitor, ofo, survived until the winter of 2018, when its capital chain broke, millions of users queued up to refund their deposits, and it is still paying off debts to this day; Xiaolan was acquired by Didi and later directly replaced by Qingju. The one that really survived was Hello Bike, which took the sinking market as its starting point in second- and third-tier cities that Mobike and ofo did not touch, and rose to prominence with heavy backing from Ant Financial. Now it forms a three-way standoff with Meituan Bike and Didi Qingju. GL Ventures invested in the party that could exit safely in the war. It did not step into a minefield, but did not make huge profits either.

Category 3: 6 Companies Still in Financing

CarDekho is the largest automotive transaction platform in India, providing new car information and used car trading services, which can be roughly understood as India's combination of "Autohome + Guazi". It also has the most delayed records in the database — GL Ventures entered at Series B in January 2015, followed by strategic investment in March 2016, Series C in January 2019, and Series C+ in August 2019, with four investments spanning 55 months. There has been no new financing record for it in the IT Juzi database for 87 months, but the company has submitted a listing application in the third quarter of 2026, with a target valuation of about 1.4 billion US dollars. The records in the database stopped in 2019, but the company is already at the door of IPO.

Fourier Intelligence develops intelligent robot systems, which in simple terms equips industrial robotic arms with a "brain" so that they can grasp and assemble flexibly. GL Ventures entered at the seed round in July 2018, followed by angel round and Pre-A in 2019, Series A in 2020, Series B and C in 2021, with six investments spanning 38 months. The domestic records stopped in September 2021, but the company did not stop operations. Its entity has long been transferred to Agile Robots AG in Germany, and it is still raising funds overseas, with NVIDIA also on its shareholder list. In June 2026, there were news that SoftBank added more than 300 million US dollars in additional investment, and the new round is about 800 million US dollars in scale. It is not stalled, but moved its financing overseas.

StarryMed develops innovative RNA drugs. GL Ventures entered at the angel round in December 2021, followed by Series A in May 2022, Series B in October 2025, and Series B+ in May 2026, with four investments spanning 53 months. The last investment was only six months ago.

Star Atlas is the first company that GL Ventures invested in after it resumed making investments in 2024. The company was founded in Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone in September 2023, developing embodied intelligent robots, which are robots that give AI a "body" and can perform physical work on their own. GL Ventures entered at Pre-A in November 2024, followed by Series A in February 2025, Series A+ in April 2025, and Series B in February 2026, with four investments spanning 15 months, and it has now reached Series B+.

DBot Robotics provides general underlying software and hardware for robots, which is equivalent to the "Android system" for robots. It was founded in Shenzhen in January 2024. GL Ventures entered at Series A in May 2025, followed by two consecutive B+ rounds in March and April 2026, and Series C in September 2026, with four investments spanning 16 months. It is the company with the latest round among the 6 companies.

OptiLink Semicon develops inter-chip optical interconnection technology, which uses light to transmit data between chips to solve the "traffic jam" problem between chips during large model training. It has the