In October this year, NVIDIA founder Jen-Hsun Huang complained at an exchange event about the following matters:

Due to U.S. export controls, NVIDIA has exited the Chinese market with 100% market share lost, plummeting from 95% to 0%.

NVIDIA has lost market share, while domestic GPU manufacturers, known as the Chinese NVIDIA and AMD, have collectively embraced a wave of listings driven by policy support and capital demands.

Shuilinkey, BRIGE, Moore Threads, and Maxsun are representatives of the four rising stars of domestic GPUs.

Moore Threads and MX FPGA, which have submitted their prospectuses, have been reviewed and passed by the relevant committees. Meanwhile, Sage Electronics has resubmitted its registration information for guidance. Brilliance Technology has also been r

A star company with IPO news is like a gold- attracting stone, attracting numerous capital regardless of whether it is successfully listed or not.

Prior to the listing, not only have shareholders successfully cashed out through equity transfers, but some listed companies in the secondary market have also experienced stock price fluctuations due to the concept of domestic GPU. Once listed, share

However, investing in domestic GPUs is not a decision made hastily. Although the ideal is to "develop our own NVIDIA," the semiconductor industry is highly internationalized and market-oriented. It not only requires significant financial investment a

The investment in domestic GPUs has gone through a cycle from being a non-consensus that people can't understand to a consensus that people understand.

The feast of creating wealth is just the beginning.

What are the investors who choose to support these players in 'unpopular' choices? Who are the most critical runners-up? Who are the ones eager to 'ride the fast train'? What are the investment intentions of these investors?

Silicon-based Research Lab has sorted out the lengthy investment lists and differentiated capital forces behind the Four Little Chinese GPU Giants. This shows that investing in domestic GPUs requires luck, gambling spirit, patience, and a game of pow

What did the early Bole look like?

The establishment of the four dragons of domestic GPU mostly concentrated after 2018, which was also a new round of entrepreneurial boom for Chinese chips.

In the entrepreneurial wave brought by the influx of hot money, it is both good and bad for start-ups. The good thing is that there is no shortage of inquiries from investors, but the difficulty lies in finding real mentors who understand the industr

Who are the early mentors of the Four Little GPU Dragons from China? We have analyzed the profiles of early investors in these four prominent chip companies and identified the following five typical characteristics: (Note: Early mentors mainly focus

Diverse Capital Backgrounds

Muxi Corporation's angel round was led by Hori Capital. In the two Pre-A rounds, besides known VC/PEs such as Red Pine China, Zennith Fund and Matrix Partners, a state-owned venture capital firm called TEDA Kechuang Investment also appeared.

In addition to the bets made by Tencent, Suiyuan Technology also received money from state-owned LPs such as Shanghai Science Venture Capital Group on Angel Wheel. Needless to say, the Moore thread has attracted well-known VCs/PEs such as Sequoia Chi

All of them are smart and professional investments

Investing in AI chips, a typical enterprise with both technological and capital intensiveness, sometimes requires luck, but what is more needed is to identify the real potential stocks in a landscape that is full of Chinese Nvidia.

Although the chip investment was hot at that time, with some investors even describing it as a "conference of thousands", many investment institutions were investing in it without fully understanding it. The majority of people actually did not compre

The Chen brothers from the Cambrian era are a great case. In the early stages of their entrepreneurship, Chen Yunjin and Chen Tianshi met with a number of investors. However, most people's feedback was that they seemed very impressive, but their idea

As for the four little dragons of domestic GPU, although they were established later than Cambricon, and the domestic investment ecosystem has also evolved, those who first recognized these exceptional talents were all smart and professional investor

Helic Capital, which participated in the Angel Round of Muxi Corporation, invested in the company as an Angel Round investor when Cambricon Technology was just established a few months ago. Kong Lingguo, the founding managing partner of Helic Capital

In 2001, he arrived in mainland China on behalf of Pacific Venture Partner, the then representative office of the Taiwan Creative Investment Association. Kong Lingguo, who had extensive connections and government resources, was well-known in Jiangsu

On the other side, Moore Threads completed its first round of funding just three months after its establishment, with investors being Paixian Qianyao and Shenzhen Minghao.

The shareholders behind Peixian Qianyao are Yang Bin (32.72%), Zhou Qi (31.25%), Shanghai Zhenshu (23.53%), and Huang Bohao (12.5%).

According to the report of China Venture, Yang Bin has worked in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Securities Company and Guohai Securities Shenzhen Branch in his early years. The investment company Guangzhou Ruizhan he founded in 2017 has invested in c

As a partner at Good Capital, Zhou Qi has over 10 years of experience in industrial investment. Before investing in Cambricon, he invested in companies like Jemei (known as the king of mobile phone cases) and Top-click in the customized computer fiel

However, according to the data from Qichacha, there is a connection between Zhou Qi and the Shenzhen Seven Rainbow Yugong Technology Development Company. Seven Rainbow is a graphics card manufacturer that has collaborated with NVIDIA for over 20 year

In addition to the familiar ZhenGe Fund, the early investors of SUIYUAN Technology also include known venture capital firm Wu Yue Feng Capital, with its investment arm Yihe Capital, as well as a group of semiconductor listed companies such as Zhaoyi

One noteworthy institution in the seed round of Suiyuan Technology is a relatively young organization, Cloud and Capital, which was founded in 2016.

According to public information, the core team of Yunhe Capital and the two founders of Suiyuan Technology have known each other for many years. Before they started their own business, they often discussed the application and iteration of AI technolo

This is not surprising as Zhao Lidong, the founder of Suiray Technology, has a background in AMD and previously led semiconductor investment-related work at Unisoc Group.

·Bole people have indeed made money

And the early investors have already made money by investing in the four rising stars of domestic GPUs.

Zhao Yun, the founder of Yunhe Capital, mentioned in an interview in 2019 that the floating profit reached 15 times within more than a year of participating in the seed round, Pre-A and A round investment of Suoyuan Technology. Considering that Yunhe

Pianxian Qianyao, the investor in the initial round of funding for Moore Threads, invested 1.904762 million yuan in its initial stage. Currently, its shareholding in Moore Threads stands at 4.2494%, which is valued at approximately 1.268 billion yuan

Not only the likes of Red Pine China are making bets at the same time

In addition, we also observed a group of people who placed their bets simultaneously:

In the big factory, Tencent and Lenovo both backed two companies.

In the market capitalization of VC/PE, including Sequoia China, ZhenFund, Matrix Ventures and IDG Capital have invested in two of them respectively;

In terms of state-owned capital, Shanghai and Shenzhen are the most prominent, with Shenzhen's state-owned capital including Shenzhen Venture Capital Investment and China Merchants Capital Investment. It is easier to understand Shanghai's strength as

Ni Zewang, the former chairman of Shenzhen Venture Capital Investment Group, once said, "Shenzhen Venture Capital Investment will invest in what the country needs."

The match between a thoroughbred and its master is not so simple.

The mutual match between a recruiter and a promising employee is not so simple.

A chip investor told us that during the Four Little Dragons period, early investments in domestic AI chips were very cautious. It takes at least two to three years from team establishment to the first chip flow: So it's basically about investing in p

Therefore, the entrepreneurial backgrounds of the four dragons of domestic GPU can also be basically divided into two categories:

One category is entrepreneurs from large international companies.

For example, founders with Nvidia and AMD technical background are typically Moore threads with their own "Nvidia blood." Founder Zhang Jianzhong served as Nvidia's global vice president and general manager of China. Muxi Co., Ltd. and Suiyuan Techno

Another type is someone who is extremely skilled at resource integration.

Zhang Wen, the founder of BRGEN Tech who hails from an investor background, is a Harvard overachiever with domestic semiconductor industry experience, yet not a professional in the chip industry. Zhang Wen revealed that his first round of financing w

Who are the most critical sources of money?

In the early stage of a chip enterprise, the first investment is very important, but as the long cycle from chip development to mass production continues, the cost becomes higher and higher. At this point, long-term supporters and those who provide t

Even after becoming the strongest chip enterprise in today's booming market, Huang Renxun looked back on the difficulties in the early stages of his startup and still expressed gratitude to Sequoia for its early bet of 1 million US dollars with almos

From the four rising stars of domestic GPUs, we also see similar long-term companions and those who provide help when in need. They bring not only crucial funds, but also their own intentions behind them.

Tencent is the most loyal among the big factories

Among the major BAT factories, Tencent's self-developed AI chips are the most low-key, and it has bet on both Suiyuan Technology and Moore Thread among the domestic GPU Four Little Dragons.

According to Moore Thread's prospectus, Tencent holds 0.7233% of its shares, ranking 26th. From the perspective of shareholding ratio, it is more like a financial investment.

Different from others, Suiyuan Technology has Tencent as its largest external shareholder with a 19.95% stake. Tencent led the Pre-A round in 2018 and has participated in a total of six rounds, which can be seen as companion investment. The reasons f

On one hand, it is necessary to look for domestically produced computing power to ensure supply, reduce reliance on NVIDIA, and gain autonomy. On the other hand, Tencent has its own cloud business and extensive application ecosystem, which can provid

At Tencent's Global Digital Ecology Conference in September this year, Tang Daosheng, the senior executive vice president of Tencent Group and CEO of Cloud and Smart Industries Group (CSIG), said that Tencent is indeed working with multiple domestic

Public information also shows that Tencent has more than 600 business scenarios, such as social content, games, office, and other fields, which are also supported by the computing power of Swayou Origin

As a comparison, Byte, which invested in Moore Threads, chose to quietly withdraw in January this year.

According to Moore Thread's prospectus, Byte's Quantum Jump transferred its 3.043704 million shares to Wenzhou Dianfan at a price of approximately 230 million.

The most critical support before listing comes from state-owned assets

The latest financing of the four domestic GPU companies all occurred in the first half of 2025, and the last financing of Suiyuan Technology, Biren Technology and Moore Thread all occurred in 2023, which means that they have been "cut off" for nearly

The reasons for the disruption of food supply are multifaceted. On one hand, it is due to the scale of the AI chip enterprises with an estimated value of billions of yuan, making the threshold of financing itself too high; on the other hand, market p

A semiconductor investment professional described the past two years of semiconductor investment as being about reducing volume and improving quality: You could say that the market has cooled down, or that it has become more conservative.

In short, during the pre-listing critical period, there are not many enterprises that can take over these AI chip companies, and state-owned funds are the key force to inject capital into this batch of domestic AI chips.

In March this year, BRGEN Tech completed a new round of strategic financing, led by the Shanghai Guotou leading artificial intelligence industry fund, which was also the first direct investment project of the fund. Two months later, another start-up,

Throughout the history of chip development, it has been closely related to the local industrial ecology. Local state-owned capital's investment in AI chip projects is not only about the project itself, but also about whether it can drive the local in

Through analyzing public data, it is found that the layout of smart computing industry for domestic GPU has already begun with the competition among urban industries.

Taking smart computing clusters as an example, according to the prospectus of Mu Xi Co., Ltd., its products have been deployed in over 10 smart computing clusters, spanning Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Changsha, Hong Kong (China) and other regions, a

Who is the hitchhiker?

Those who are companions in the long run, naturally there are also those who take the ride along the way.

Among them, the most eye-catching ones are undoubtedly the lively listed companies in the secondary market.

Companies listed on the stock market enjoying drinking soup

Zhongke Blue Thunder (688332.SH), which started from Huaqiang North, has responded that it holds shares in three of the "four domestic GPU leaders": MX (0.24%), Moore Threads (0.50%), and Suiray Technology (0.23%).

Another clothing company, Seven Wolves (002029.SZ), holds a total of 0.71% shares of Muxi Shares through its own and controlled companies Qisheng Ventures and Jin'an Sanchuang.

According to the report by ChinaVenture, the parent company of Seven Wolves also indirectly obtained the rights and interests of Moore Thread based on its reliance on ShenChuang Venture Investment.

There are also many listed companies that adopt this kind of ride-on investment strategy, such as Yingqu Technology (002925.SZ), Chunzhong Technology (603516.SH), and Zhongshan Public Utilities (000685.SZ).

Yingqu Technology appeared on the shareholder list of Moore Thread in December 2024, while Chunzhong Technology only obtained 0.24% of Mu Xi's shares in March 2025. It entered the market on the eve of the night, and the purpose of financial return wa

Too many people cash out and leave the field

As people enter the scene, others leave.

In fact, judging from Muxi shares and Moore threads that have disclosed their prospectuses, after multiple rounds of equity transfers, some people have successfully cashed out and achieved good profits.

Muxi's share prospectus shows that since December 2023, it has undergone 8 equity transfers. Among them, Yuhang Financial Holdings (Jingcang Changyou and Jingcang Yaoguang) cashed in a total of 162 million yuan, Heli Capital (Heli Guoxin Intelligent)

According to the statistics from "China Investment Daily", starting from February 2025, when he first invested in a personal capacity, Ge Weidong invested approximately RMB 639 million in just one month to acquire a stake in Muxu Technology, eventual

Prior to its launch, Moore Threads underwent five equity transfers in total, and some institutions made money by selling their existing shares.

Among them, Lenovo Changjiang, Sunshine Insurance (Sunshine Huiying), Bosera Fund (China Merchants series), Pony.ai (Yancheng Baiyang), Jiyuan Capital (Jiyuan Haoyuan, Jiyuan Haoyue), Haison Capital, Shenzhen Minghao, and ByteDance (Quantum Leap) hav

4. Is listing a more cruel start?

As capital waits for the lottery results of listings, the window for domestic AI chip companies to go public is also closing.

According to our incomplete statistics, more than 70 companies have terminated their IPOs in the first half of 2025 alone, and the review for A-share listing is becoming increasingly stringent.

For domestic AI chips, on one hand, the competition for the title of First Domestic GPU Stock has already begun, and behind it is the competition for scarcity premium.

Beyond the emotional wave triggered by the listings, the fundamental data in the prospectus will also be openly examined. This includes their core competitiveness, customer situation, and financial data, which will be compared with their peers as wel

The domestic GPU four little dragons are still a long way from making profits. According to the prospectus, in the past three and a half years, Moore Thread has accumulated net losses attributable to its parent company of more than 5 billion yuan, an

Chip entrepreneurship is particularly tough. Huang Renxun said, 'We need to keep running, whether it's to chase food or to avoid being seen as food by others. We should not advance at a slow pace.'

For the four rising stars of domestic GPUs, if they can successfully go public, it will only be a milestone, which means that a more intense competition has just begun and a longer and harder race has just started.

This article comes from the "Silicon-Based Research Room" on the Weixin Official Accounts