Behind this wave of AI companies going public, what really needs attention is Shanghai State-owned Assets

1. Recently, there has been a joke in the capital market: Shanghai State-owned Assets "made a fortune."

This joke originates from the fact that a number of Shanghai AI companies have gone public in succession within just one month.

In December 2025, MuXi Co., focusing on high-performance GPUs, landed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board, followed shortly by InSilicon, which focuses on AI drug development, listing on the Hong Kong stock market. In January 2026, BiRan Technology, also deeply engaged in GPUs, rang the gong at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, followed by TianShu ZhiXin, a domestic general-purpose GPU manufacturer, and MiniMax (XiYu Technology), an AI large model company, both of which subsequently listed on the Hong Kong stock market.

As people sorted through the information about these AI companies, they found that behind them, there were indeed traces of Shanghai State-owned Assets.

Shanghai Guotou, Shanghai International, Shanghai Guosheng, Lingang Group, Pudong Venture Capital... The market suddenly realized that Shanghai State-owned Assets had laid out such a deep and broad foundation in this track.

Guofang Innovation under Shanghai International completed a strategic investment in MiniMax in November 2023, with the deal finalized in 2024, becoming the first RMB fund investor from the Shanghai State-owned Assets system to enter XiYu Technology. Guotou XianDao under Shanghai Guotou and FuTeng Capital also deeply participated in MiniMax's early and mid-stage financing, leading the Pre-B+ and Pre-B++ rounds of financing.

BiRan Technology is the first direct investment project of the Shanghai Guotou XianDao Artificial Intelligence Industry Mother Fund. In March 2025, the Shanghai Guotou XianDao Artificial Intelligence Industry Mother Fund co-led the investment in BiRan Technology, with several well-known investment institutions and industrial capital following suit, reaching a scale of hundreds of millions. Additionally, from the establishment of BiRan to its listing, Lingang Group has also had multiple funds that have led and followed investments, becoming one of its important shareholders.

The Sci-Tech series mother fund managed by International Sci-Tech Innovation Management under Shanghai International has continuously supported MuXi Technology's development through sub-funds since its establishment in 2020, investing in its angel round, pre-A round, B round, and pre-IPO round. At the same time, the first phase mother fund directly invested 50 million in MuXi Technology's A round in 2021; the second phase mother fund, in conjunction with the international investment subsidiary of Shanghai International, directly invested 130 million in MuXi Technology's B round in 2024.

Behind these haloed listed companies, there is also a group of eager unicorns—SuiYuan Technology in the cloud AI chip field has completed IPO counseling and is sprinting towards listing. XiZhi Technology, a provider of optoelectronic hybrid computing power, ZhiYuan Robotics, which focuses on embodied intelligence, and JieYue XingChen, which continues to iterate in the direction of multimodal foundational models, are all planning their paths to listing. Shanghai State-owned Assets has also taken early action with these companies.

A series of investments are too numerous to enumerate, and upon closer inspection, it seems that every company has the support of Shanghai State-owned Assets.

From a financial perspective, the listing of these companies will indeed bring considerable returns to Shanghai State-owned Assets.

But why Shanghai State-owned Assets?

1. Some say that in recent years, Shanghai State-owned Assets have genuinely put in effort and made real moves in supporting scientific and technological innovation.

In 2024, when Shanghai launched three major leading industry mother funds and a future industry fund with a total scale of 100 billion yuan, the entire venture capital market was shaken.

After the shock, the speed of Shanghai once again surprised people. The three major leading industry mother funds completed the entire process of selection and investment in the year they were established in 2024, with well-known market funds eagerly participating In 2025, Shanghai Guotou's investment amount will approach 40 billion yuan.

The three-dimensional approach allows Shanghai State-owned Assets to be increasingly composed in the technology sector.

By laying out sub-funds through the mother fund, Shanghai State-owned Assets has extended its reach even further. Let's take a look at the data from the Guotou Leading Artificial Intelligence Mother Fund: the sub-fund matrix consists of a total of 22 funds, with a total scale reaching 34.6 billion yuan, and the investment decision amount of Guotou Leading has reached 7 billion yuan. The sub-funds have successfully attracted and landed 37 projects, promoting a number of star enterprises such as He Shi Zhi Hang, Hillbot, Song Ying Technology, Qing Cheng Ji Zhi, and Z Pilot to settle in Shanghai.

Through the reach of the sub-funds, Shanghai State-owned Assets also has the opportunity to access more projects, allowing for decisive direct investments and more direct participation in the technological revolution. For example, when Guotou Leading came into contact with Zhi Yuan, the investment team found that this enterprise met their desired company profile in terms of technology, products, and supply chain management, and quickly finalized the direct investment.

As Shanghai Guotou Chairman Yuan Guohua stated: "State-owned assets should invest early and small, but also invest hard and heavily. Currently, Guotou has nearly 200 frontline investors who are tirelessly working on the industrial front. With the help of sub-funds, we have hundreds of pairs of eyes looking for projects and assessing them. Once we capture a good enterprise, we can act decisively."

More importantly, Shanghai State-owned Assets' multiple interventions are not just embellishments, but crucial support at key moments.

In 2023, the "Hundred Model War" sparked by ChatGPT was in full swing, with the industry entering a phase of intense competition, facing tightening financing and unclear profit models. At this time, it was difficult to determine which enterprise would break through.

Focusing on MiniMax, Guofang Innovation conducted multiple rounds of in-depth due diligence, but what ultimately impressed them was just an ordinary detail. Guofang Investment's Deputy Director Zhang Chen recalled that during the last due diligence, they saw the R&D team tirelessly optimizing model parameters late into the night, which solidified their judgment—rather than getting caught up in short-term track disputes and fluctuations, they anchored on the long-term value of hard technology breakthroughs, investing real money to retain high-quality AI innovation in Shanghai.

Since 2024, affected by the secondary market correction, the financing environment for innovative drugs has continued to be under pressure. Against this backdrop, Pudong Venture Capital Group, as a joint lead investor, injected 30 million USD into Enxi Intelligent and signed multiple strategic cooperation agreements in areas such as investment and financing, industrial upgrading, and park cooperation, driving subsequent Hong Kong funds to follow up, ultimately completing a 123 million USD Series E financing.

"The significance of this investment far exceeds the funds themselves; what Shanghai gives us is a sense of certainty." Enxi Intelligent's Co-CEO Ren Feng believes it sends a signal that even in an unoptimistic market, there is still capital that believes AI can change drug development.

This is precisely what distinguishes Shanghai State-owned Assets Fund from other funds; the focus is on the word "strategy."

"If a project has strategic significance for Shanghai or even the country, it is worth trying even if the risks are a bit higher," said He Miao, Deputy General Manager of Guotou Leading Fund. "When many enterprises face financing uncertainties and difficulties, Shanghai State-owned Assets is brave enough to play the role of lead investor in the development process of enterprises, attracting more social capital to jointly support these hard technology enterprises." It can be said that under this concept, Shanghai State-owned Assets has gradually built a complete AI ecosystem covering underlying chip computing power, intermediate model tools, and upper-level industry applications in Shanghai.

Under a sufficiently dense network of technology investments, the layout of more quality enterprises by Shanghai State-owned Assets seems to be a natural outcome.

Third, the market feels that Shanghai State-owned Assets has profited, but the invested enterprises feel that they have also benefited.

Several company founders expressed a viewpoint that, compared to the amount of funding, the recognition from Shanghai State-owned Assets is even more valuable, playing a role in stabilizing investor confidence. The fund manager from Guotou Xiandao candidly stated that during post-investment management, they often encounter other funds with investment intentions asking for their opinions and views.

At the same time, the support from Shanghai State-owned Assets has never been limited to capital injection; it has also acted as an industrial enabler, making efforts in technical breakthroughs, industrial connections, and ecological collaboration, to build a complete ecological network for AI enterprises.

For example, after investing in MiniMax, Guofang Innovation brought the company team to connect with various levels of state-owned assets institutions in Shanghai, guiding the company to strengthen local expression and helping MiniMax successfully gain support from multiple state-owned assets in Shanghai.

After investing in Zhiyuan, Shanghai Guotou designed plans together with Zhiyuan to layout embodied intelligence upstream and downstream, creating a complete industrial chain in the Yangtze River Delta. At the same time, around industrial orders and business scenario landing needs, they helped Zhiyuan expand business scenarios in Agricultural Bank and other financial institutions, Guangming Group's health care business landing scenarios, and Shanghai Museum's sightseeing tourism scenarios.

In the construction of the intelligent computing center in the Lingang New Area, the chips from Birun Technology are applied as core infrastructure, forming industrial synergy with other enterprises in the park, building an AI hard technology ecological cluster.

Not only considering the enterprise ecosystem, Shanghai State-owned Assets is also filling the gaps in the investment ecosystem.

In the earlier stage of the investment chain, the first public welfare foundation for basic research initiated by the state-owned assets system in the country—the Qiyuan Public Welfare Fund was established in Shanghai. This fund was jointly donated by 16 municipal state-owned enterprises under the guidance and support of the Shanghai Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, aiming to fund basic research and applied basic research in fields such as integrated circuits, biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and future industries. The first batch of 24 "Qiyuan Young Scholars Project" leaders and 8 "Qiyuan State-owned Assets Pioneer Project" leaders have already received funding support, with each project receiving no more than 1 million yuan in funding, and the youngest funded scholar is only 28 years old.

In the angel investment ecosystem, Shanghai State-owned Assets has also been making frequent efforts. As the initiator and strategic partner of the Shanghai Angel Association, Shanghai Guotou has cooperated to build an early-stage sci-tech incubation ecosystem, with its fund managers deeply participating in cultivating early-stage investors through the Sci-tech Angel Program and hosting special events such as the Futen Capital Sci-tech Camp.

At the backend of the investment chain, Shanghai International has taken the lead in establishing the first venture capital S fund in the Shanghai state-owned assets system—the Sci-tech Relay Phase I Fund, with a fundraising scale of 1.5 billion yuan, exploring the capital relay mechanism for the sci-tech industry, and striving to create a 10 billion yuan scale sci-tech relay fund in the future. This initiative will release capital liquidity of 10 billion yuan to the market, effectively alleviating the "exit difficulty" problem in the private equity field, and through a virtuous cycle of "investment—exit—reinvestment," attract more social capital to participate in sci-tech investment In order to alleviate concerns about early, small, and hard technology investments by state-owned assets, the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, in collaboration with the Municipal Financial Office, jointly issued the "Trial Measures for the Assessment and Due Diligence Exemption of Private Equity Investment Funds Supervised by the Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission." This regulation stipulates five scenarios applicable for due diligence exemption and integrates the annual assessment of managers with the evaluation of the fund's entire lifecycle.

This series of strategic deployments in the industrial and investment ecosystems is truly impressive for Shanghai's state-owned assets. Many people see the short-term financial returns of Shanghai's state-owned assets, but the vision of this city has never been limited to the immediate.

Therefore, rather than saying that Shanghai's state-owned assets have "made a fortune," it is more accurate to say that Shanghai has gained a competitive edge, and Chinese technology has won a more imaginative future.

Source: Shangguan News