According to the investment community, Shanghai Hejian Industrial Software Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hejian Industrial Software") will complete the last round of financing exceeding 1 1 billion yuan.
So far, the software of the two-year-old joint company has accumulated nearly 3 billion yuan only in the Angel Round and Pre-A Round, and a luxurious investor team has gathered behind it.
National IC Industry Investment Fund Phase II, China Internet Investment Fund, Wu Yuefeng Kechuang, Sequoia China, Hao Wei Innovation, Shenzhen Venture Capital, Shangying Capital under SAIC, IDG Capital, Guo Ke Investment, China Automotive Chip Alliance, Feixiang Capital, Guangzhou Automobile Capital and many other well-known institutions, as well as Wen Tai Technology and Weir.
Behind him is the venture capitalist Pan, the founding partner of Wu Yuefeng Capital.
After graduating from Tsinghua University in his early years, he and his alumni founded Wu Yuefeng Capital, a semiconductor river and lake.
In 2020, he formed a team to formally set up a company and began the road of incubation.
At this point, as a new trend of venture capital, well-known VC began to incubate on a large scale.
Sequoia China, Gaoying Venture Capital, IDG Capital, Junlian Capital, Aurora Venture Capital, innovation works ... not only launched seed wheel and angel wheel intensively, but also spared no effort to personally participate in the incubation project.
The lessons of the later valuation bubble are vivid, and everyone is catching up faster and faster.
This is the first act in the history of venture capital in China.
VC Daxie hatch
Tsinghua people created the unicorn.
Who is Pan Jianyue?
Pan, born in 1967 and graduated from Tsinghua University, was the president of New Thinking Technology in China and the president of Asia-Pacific, the world's largest EDA company.
20 1 1 established Wu Yuefeng capital with Tsinghua alumni Wu Ping and Li Feng, focusing on investment in high-tech emerging industries, with core areas covering integrated circuits, mobile internet, energy-saving and environmental protection technologies, clean energy and biomedicine.
In the meantime, Pan invested in many well-known chip listed companies, such as Spreadtrum, Zhao Yi Innovation, Quik, Ruixinwei, Guangliwei, Weijie Chuangxin, Saiwei, Jihe Xincai and Hua Qin Technology, and also participated in the reorganization of Beijing Zheng Jun.
Pan has rich cross-border M&A experience, invested in Howe Technology, promoted the integration of Howe Technology and Will, and led the privatization of Shanghai Anbao Electronics.
Pan Jianyue has been active in the semiconductor field, but did not invest in EDA projects in his early years.
Pan said in a public interview: "Compared with the imagination of China chips, the market space of EDA is not enough.
"
By May 2020, Pan changed his mind.
At that time, when communicating with an industry expert, he learned that the three most important links in the future development of China's chip industry are equipment, materials and EDA.
"You know so much about Ada, you should take responsibility.
"This sentence deeply touched Pan.
In the same year, Pan found Fellow, Guo Lifu, the former vice president of New Thinking Technology, and Xu Yun, the "female head" of another international EDA giant, American Cadence, and formally established a domestic EDA company, Hejian Gongsoft.
According to the application scenarios, the use of EDA tools is mainly divided into design, verification, packaging and manufacturing, among which verification is the weakest link of domestic EDA tools.
To this end, Pan's team decided to start a business with verification as the starting point.
At the beginning, Pan gave full play to the advantages of the investment circle.
In 2023, Hejian Gongruan successively invested in EDA company Shanghai Acas and domestic chip testing and R&D collaborative process tool supplier Shanghai Bo Gu Technology.
After that, the number of software employees in the joint venture company quickly expanded to 300, and the number of R&D teams exceeded 220.
Since its establishment more than half a year ago, Hopewell Software launched the first commercial-grade digital verification simulator univistasimulator(UVS) with independent intellectual property rights in China in June 2023, which won the support of domestic head customers and helped the products to be polished repeatedly.
During the epidemic in Shanghai, the software development progress of United Company was not greatly affected.
Recently, the company launched five EDA products and solutions in one breath to solve the challenges of different tasks in chip development, such as functional verification, debugging and large-scale test management, and advanced packaging system-level design cooperation.
With the return to normal life in Shanghai, the joint venture company officially announced in a low-key manner that it would provide heavy financing of more than 1 1 billion yuan.
This financing includes not only well-known VCS such as IDG Capital, Guo Ke Investment and Wu Yuefeng Capital, but also industrial capitals such as Shanghao Capital, China Automobile Chip Alliance and Guangzhou Automobile Capital under SAIC, with a luxurious lineup.
It is worth mentioning that the last financing of United Company Software was as high as 65.438+0.7 billion yuan, which was the largest single round of financing in EDA field in China.
So far, M&A and blind date have accumulated nearly RMB 3 billion, which is especially rare in the context of VC/PE braking.
The mother of the chip, EDA lit.
Behind the soft financing is the high-profile track-EDA.
EDA is the automation of electronic design, which means the automation of electronic design. It is a design tool that uses computer software to complete the design, simulation, verification and other processes of large-scale integrated circuits, and is mastered by chip engineers.
How important is EDA-it runs through the design, manufacturing and block testing of integrated circuits, and it is one of the strategic foundation pillars of the integrated circuit industry, also known as the "mother of chips".
In the semiconductor circle, it is often said: "Whoever has the right to speak EDA will have the lifeblood of IC, and whoever can attack the latecomers in the chip industry.
"In the great journey of replacing domestic semiconductors, it is no exaggeration to say that EDA is an inevitable' stuck neck' link.
In recent years, the EDA industry, which has been forgotten by many people, has ushered in a small peak of entrepreneurship. With the arrival of VC/PE, many well-known startups have emerged.
Such as Xin Huazhang.
Wang Libin, the founder of Zhang Xinhua, was founded in March, 2020. He worked in the world's leading EDA enterprise and has more than 30 years of experience in technology development and company operation and management in the electronics industry.
Since its establishment, Zhang Xinhua has completed the independent research and development of four verified EDA products in less than two years, and won orders from well-known domestic chip customers.
Huazhang is more popular in VC/PE circle.
In the first year of its establishment, Zhang Xinhua completed four rounds of financing and other well-known investment institutions such as Gaoyou Venture Capital, Wuyuan Capital, Center Juyuan and Songhe Capital. In 2023, Zhang Xinhua will also be a must-talk project for investment committees of various investment institutions, and well-known investment institutions such as Sequoia Broadband Digital Industry Fund, Cloud Fund, Jingwei Venture Capital, Gao Rong Capital and Chinese Capital will become shareholders.
On June 5438+ 10 this year, Zhang Xinhua received several hundred million yuan of Pre-B financing from CDB Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrading Fund.
It is reported that Zhang Xinhua is launching new financing, and the competition is fierce.
In addition, emerging companies such as Companion Technology, Core Technology, Core and Semiconductor, Luobei, Weixin Technology, Innotec and Peifeng Tunan have sprung up, and various VC/PEs have also tried their best to compete fiercely.
At the same time, Huawei Hubble also rushed into EDA track and invested in Jiutongfang Microelectronics, Lixin Software, Wuxi Feipu Electronics, Asuka and other companies in one breath.
Among them, Lixin Software, founded by Chen Jianli, a professor at Fudan University, and Asuka, founded by Yuan Jun, an industry veteran, were selected for Huawei in less than two years.
However, some investors are skeptical about the layout EDA of VC/PE.
"Huawei's investment in EDA software can be understood as considering its own business.
However, if VC/PE enters EDA course, whether it can get an ideal return on investment is bound to be questioned.
"Early VC partners in Shanghai frankly expressed their concerns.
"Throw out is a friend of time.
Investors who pay attention to South China Semiconductor bluntly say that it is too difficult for EDA to overtake in corners, and there are very few barriers to substitute patents in China.
"But from the perspective of national security and enterprise supply chain, we must have EDA. This is just needed.
"
The strategic position of EDA has become the consensus in the circle.
In 2020, the global EDA market will be1146.7 billion USD, with a year-on-year increase of 1 1.63%.
Although EDA industry accounts for a small proportion in the overall market scale of integrated circuit industry, it has supported and influenced hundreds of billions of dollars of integrated circuit industry by inciting the whole integrated circuit industry.
Thus, in the cold and cheerless February of 2022, when EDA officially announced that it had raised over 100 million yuan, EDA's "Hangxin" officially announced that it had completed over 100 million rounds of financing, and SMIC's fund-raising source was invested. It can be seen that in March, Huaye Tiancheng Capital and other institutions participated in the investment, SMIC thought of tens of millions of angel round financing, Huiyou Capital led the investment, and Meihua Venture Capital followed the investment. ...
In order to find EDA project, VC/PE went to Shanghai crazily at the beginning of the year.
There are about 30 EDA enterprises in China, mainly distributed in Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangsu and other places.
Among them, 80% EDA enterprises come from the Yangtze River Delta region with Shanghai as the core, such as Guowei Sixin, Semiconductor and Semiconductor, Bilun Electronics, Lixin Software, Arcaz Microelectronics, Instant Star Electronics, Hehe Software, Companion Technology, Jiukong Intelligent and other representative enterprises.
In addition, almost Lun Electronics, the first domestic EDA stock, is also from Zhangjiang, Shanghai.
At the end of 2023, Glen Electronics was successfully listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board of Shanghai Stock Exchange, becoming the first EDA company in China, and its current market value exceeds 654.38+02 billion US dollars.
Huada 9, which entered the IPO issuance and registration stage, and Guowei Sixin, who stopped auditing due to the epidemic, are both from Shanghai.
Based on the accumulated semiconductor industry ecology for many years, Shanghai has successfully "nested" many EDA enterprises.
"Semiconductor, the Pearl River Delta really can't rob Shanghai at present.
A hard technology investor in Shenzhen invested in an EDA company last year, trying to persuade it to settle in Shenzhen. The entrepreneur compared the industrial situation and policy strength of the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta in detail, and told the case of choosing Shanghai in the end.
"We have encountered such a situation many times, and there is nothing we can do.
"
The late stage is too big, VC goes to the early stage.
End hatch
From EDA to semiconductors, to high-tech tracks such as new energy and synthetic biology, it is now the battlefield of VC/PE killing each other.
After the organization turned around, the investment community heard the same voice. Good projects are getting harder and harder to grab. "Either the valuation is too high, or it doesn't work, or it can't be squeezed in."
"It is better to hatch like this than to look in all directions in a hurry.
"The VC partner of Beijing Veterans Technology admits that if the project has been in your hands through FA, the valuation will rise and investors will easily fall into vicious competition.
"VC is an industry that tests cognition and judgment very much. In my experience, incubation-actively conceiving projects, finding teams and filling gaps in the industry is the most effective and safest early investment.
"
This is not an isolated case. The last incubation swept the VC circle.
In July 2020, Sequoia Digital Intelligence Industry Incubation Center, the first domestic industrial incubator of Sequoia Capital, officially opened in Zhangjiang Artificial Intelligence Island, Shanghai.
As of July 2023, Sequoia Capital has four incubators in Beijing and Shanghai, covering the fields of digital technology and smart medical care.
Come on, come on.
Today, Sequoia China will invest "earlier"-it will be an enterprise from the beginning, provide incubation services for start-ups after investing in one-stop enterprises, and take the initiative to go to the source to "gather the shining stars in the sky here".
Here is a typical case-Wei Ying Science and Technology.
This is an enterprise in Sequoia Digital Intelligence Industry Incubation Center, which was established in 65438+February 2020. From entering the incubator to July 2023, with the support of Sequoia China, Weiwei Technology developed from a team of five people to a team of more than 60 people, achieving sustainable growth in performance.
Coincidentally. In May 2023, Roche China Accelerator was officially launched in Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Roche Park.
At the launching ceremony, Gaochun Venture Capital and Roche signed a strategic cooperation agreement.
Yi Nuoqing, co-chief investment officer and partner of Gaoling, said in his speech that Gaoling Venture Capital will jointly incubate and cultivate the growth of local medical innovation enterprises with Roche China Accelerator.
And IDG capital. Since 20 15, projects such as Feng Wu Science and Technology, Decibel Communication and Hengxuan Technology have been hatched one after another, among which Hengxuan Technology landed in science and technology innovation board in 2020.
In 2023, IDG Capital's Institute of Innovation and Investment, MGI and Blue rainbow Life Science Accelerator co-hosted the Accelerated Camp for Start-ups and Entrepreneurial Teams in the field of life sciences.
In addition, well-known investment institutions such as Junlian Capital, innovation works and Aurora Venture Capital have also begun to incubate.
In 2023, Kai-fu Lee's ai company, Qizhi Innovation, landed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with the latest market value of about $654.38+02 billion. In recent years, Aurora Venture Capital has hatched well-known projects such as Hechuan Technology, Black Sesame Intelligence, Denglin Technology and Qingfeng Technology, and Junlian Capital has invested nearly 10 medical projects through the "Greenland Investment Plan". Ecological incubation has also become one of the important early investment strategies of Junlian Capital.
So, why did well-known VCS start to hatch one after another?
On the one hand, with the development of many well-known enterprises, the head organization has accumulated rich incubation experience and strength; On the other hand, the current project valuation is getting higher and higher, and the more likely it is to make money in the future.
More importantly, in the era of high-tech venture capital, the value growth after investment is very important.
"We are facing more and more' imperfect' entrepreneurs-China's education system and the experience of most overseas returnees. They are determined to be giants in technology and products, but they are likely to be dwarfs in sales market, human resource management, legal patents and other fields. By then, investors will be systematically helped to fill the shortcomings of entrepreneurs.
"Investors who have hatched a number of hard technology projects are impressed.
It is easier for entrepreneurs and investors to build trust by participating in enterprise operations in the early stage, which provides a very good foundation for future investors' post-investment management and guidance and support.
In addition, due to "less investment, fast investment and heavy investment", such projects often get the greatest benefits.
Going early-it has become the consensus of VC circle and an indispensable part of the head mechanism.
This is the next battlefield for China VC.
This article comes from the investment community.
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