한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

Lei Jun showed up.

The investment community learned that Kingsoft Software recently announced that its subsidiary Wuhan Kingsoft and Xiaomi Beijing, Xiaomi Wuhan and other limited partners have entered into a new partnership agreement to establish the Beijing Xiaomi Smart Manufacturing Equity Investment Fund (hereinafter referred to as the "Xiaomi Smart Manufacturing Fund"). The total subscribed capital has increased from RMB 9.03 billion to RMB 10 billion.

This time,Lei Jun personally serves as chairman of the new fund investment committeeThe lineup of investors behind it includes state-owned capital platforms such as Beijing Guidance Fund, Yizhuang International Investment, Tianjin Haichuang, Fujian Financial Holdings, Ganzhou Guangkong, as well as Xiaomi's circle of friends such as Huya, Dio Micro, Nanochip, Nanxin Semiconductor, and Jewatt Microelectronics.

The primary market is currently experiencing difficulties in raising funds, so it is surprising to raise such a large amount of funds at this moment.

Xiaomi's 10 billion fund is unveiled, revealing the lineup of investors

In fact, Xiaomi has been preparing for a long time.

Back in December 2021, Lei Jun quietly completed a major move to establish Xiaomi Private Equity Fund Management Co., Ltd., and finally owned a private equity investment company under the name of "Xiaomi". This means that Xiaomi Private Equity is allowed to participate in investment in the form of GP and become a "regular army" of venture capital.

At that time, people in the industry judged that Lei Jun might lead this market-oriented team to start independent external fundraising.

In the following months, Xiaomi Smart Manufacturing Fund completed the filing, with Lei Jun as the chairman of the investment decision-making committee. The official website of the China Securities Association shows that Xiaomi Smart Manufacturing Fund is still the only fund established under Xiaomi Private Equity. The fund type is an equity investment fund with a planned total fundraising scale of 10 billion yuan.

The investment community has been paying attention to the fundraising process of Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Fund--

As early as July 2022, the fund completed its first delivery and raised 6.33 billion yuan; in March last year, the fund raised 2.7 billion yuan, and the LP camp expanded further. Until recently, Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Fund has added 4 partners, Fujian Jintou Jinshun Equity Investment Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership), Jewatt Microelectronics (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd., Shanghai Nanxin Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd., Ganzhou Guangkong Soviet High-quality Development Industrial Investment Fund (Limited Partnership), and two partners have made additional investments, raising another 970 million yuan.

At this point, the 10 billion Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Fund has been officially completed.

Specifically, Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Fund has 17 shareholders, of which Beijing Xiaomi Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. is a general partner, and the latter is wholly owned by Xiaomi Private Equity. In addition, there are 16 investors, a luxurious camp.

Previously, the Zero2IPO Research Center had calculated that in addition to its own funds, more than 70% of the funds raised by Xiaomi came from LPs such as government-guided funds, industrial capital, state-owned investment platforms, and financial institutions. Among them, the first two types of LPs accounted for more than 25%, and it is deeply favored by guidance funds and industrial capital.

This also roughly outlines the LP portrait of Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Fund. Xiaomi-related companies have invested a total of 3.63 billion yuan. In addition, LPs are also from state-owned assets in Beijing, Fujian, Ganzhou and other provinces and cities. It is worth mentioning that as the second largest LP of the fund, the Beijing Municipal Government Investment Guidance Fund has invested 2 billion yuan.

When sorting out the industrial capital LPs, most of them have close ties with Xiaomi. For example, Guangzhou Huaduo is the main company of Joyy. The founder Li Xueling and Lei Jun have known each other for 20 years. Lei Jun once supported him and invested $1 million in the angel round of Joyy. In November 2012, Joyy successfully landed on NASDAQ, becoming the second company invested and listed by Lei Jun.

In addition, there are Dio Micro and Naxin Microelectronics behind Naxing Venture Capital, and Xiaomi Changjiang Industry Fund appears among the shareholders. One of the latest LPs, Nanxin Semiconductor, earlier received a round A financing led by Shunwei Capital. In April last year, Nanxin Semiconductor officially landed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, with a latest market value of over 14 billion yuan.

According to the announcement, starting from the first delivery date (July 20, 2022), the operating period of Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Fund will be 8 years, of which the first 4 years will be the investment period. In other words, there are only two years left to invest, and the pace will have to be accelerated in the future.

Investing in the automotive industry chain

How to invest Xiaomi’s 10 billion fund?

The announcement shows that the fund will mainly focus on integrated circuits, and related upstream and downstream fields, covering new generation information technology, intelligent manufacturing, new materials, artificial intelligence, displays and display devices, automotive electronics, as well as upstream and downstream applications and supply chains of mobile terminal consumer products and smart devices.

Perhaps, this was born for Xiaomi to build cars.

I still remember that in March 2021, Xiaomi announced its official decision to build a car, led by Lei Jun, with a full investment of US$10 billion in the next 10 years. At that time, Lei Jun said that "Xiaomi Auto is the last entrepreneurial project in my life" and was willing to bet all his reputation and achievements on it.

Therefore, the Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Fund established later was widely believed by the outside world to be used by Lei Jun to enhance the vertical integration capabilities of Xiaomi's vehicle business to ensure the supply of key components and software systems for Xiaomi vehicles. This was verified by combing through investment cases.

Qichacha shows that Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Fund has invested in 40 projects so far. Among them, the earliest can be traced back to May 2022, when Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Fund and Hubei Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund jointly invested in Farnlight.

Founded in 2017, Farnlight's products cover the research and development, production, sales and technical services of lithium-ion battery electrolytes, sodium-ion battery electrolytes, solid electrolytes and core additives, and are widely used innew energy vehicles, energy storage systems, consumer electronics and other fields. This means that Xiaomi has begun to turn its investment tentacles to more upstream segments, and its car-making territory has been further extended.

In 2023, with most of the funds in place, Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Fund ushered in the peak investment period. In March alone, it invested in five companies at once, including Hongyixin, Ice Zero Technology, Stand Robotics, Zhuifeng Automobile, and Han's Precision Transmission, covering the upstream and downstream links of the industrial chain such as automotive electronic series chips, vehicle acoustic systems, and precision reducers.

In March this year, Xiaomi Su7 was officially launched, and the supplier camp surfaced. Among them are Hesai Technology, a LiDAR supplier for many Xiaomi-invested companies. As early as its Series D financing in 2021, Xiaomi Group was one of the lead investors; Fute Technology from Huzhou has also obtained a project with Xiaomi Auto. Looking back, in September 2021, Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund had signed an agreement to invest in Fute Technology and become its fifth largest shareholder.

Of course, Xiaomi Smart Manufacturing Fund is also present. Eagle Peak Electronics, located in Shanghai, is sprinting for the GEM IPO. In the third round of review inquiry letter for IPO application, Eagle Peak Electronics also revealed that the cooperation with Xiaomi Auto has been matched with the Xiaomi SU7 dual-motor version through Huichuan Technology, with a supply share of about 75%. According to the prospectus, in December 2022, Xiaomi Smart Manufacturing Fund subscribed 749,600 shares of Eagle Peak Electronics for 20 million yuan.

These are just the tip of the iceberg.

The era of industrial investment has arrived

Looking back to the year when Xiaomi decided to build cars, the Chinese car-making industry was in turmoil.

Lei Jun revealed this past event in his annual speech "Courage" last Friday: At that time, several VCs offered a valuation of $10 billion to Xiaomi Auto, which was still in the PPT stage, but Lei Jun rejected it "because the car manufacturing cycle is very long, if you take other people's money, it will be difficult to have consistent ideas in the long run." So Xiaomi did not raise funds and did it on its own, paying for all the money itself.

Lei Jun said, "Wang Chuanfu later told me that he admired our courage." But in addition to courage, there is also the confidence brought by Xiaomi's huge investment portfolio.

As early as in the book "Xiaomi Entrepreneurship Thinking", Lei Jun wrote,If you invest in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, you will greatly shorten the time it takes to start a cross-border business.。

This set of methodology is the result of Lei Jun's hard work in leading Xiaomi for more than ten years. Looking at Xiaomi today, in addition to operating its own products, it also lays out related industrial chains through horizontal industrial investment to create a "Mi Chain Map".

To a certain extent, he also applied this methodology to car manufacturing, and in just a few years he almost swept the entire upstream and downstream of the new energy vehicle industry chain.

From the outside, Xiaomi is apparently making cars, but in fact it is making a big move around making cars. In other words, as long as the scale and reputation of Xiaomi cars can be improved, it can drive this car "Mi Chain". Even if it does not make money from selling cars, it can still make profits by investing in the upstream and downstream automotive industry chain, and it may even enter the capital market and create more "Xiaomi series".

This is a reflection of the current era of industrial investment. Looking around, Habour Investment, known as the "strongest semiconductor VC", is responsible for exploring new possibilities for Huawei; CATL is the most fierce catcher in the new energy industry chain; and BYD is invincible in new energy; together with Xiaomi, they can be called the "Four Heavenly Kings" of industrial capital.

Before they knew it, they were taking center stage.