Hengxu Capital, a private equity platform of Chinese state-owned automaker SAIC Motor Corp, has held the first close of its fourth flagship Chinese yuan fund at over 2 billion yuan ($287.6 million), targeting 3.5 billion yuan ($503.3 million) in the final close.
Led by chairman Lu Yongtao, who had facilitated SAIC Motor’s domestic listing back in 1997, the Shanghai-based corporate venture capital (CVC) firm achieved the first close with commitments from its parent group and securities companies like an equity investment subsidiary of Guotai Junan Securities; and HT Capital, affiliated with Guotai Haitong Securities.
Multiple local governments in the Yangtze River Delta in eastern China, industrial groups, and listed companies also subscribed to Fund IV as limited partners (LPs), Hengxu Capital disclosed in a WeChat post on Tuesday.
The launch of its RMB Fund IV comes amid Hengxu Capital’s strategic transitioning beyond its original focus on the automotive ecosystem into investing across a wide spectrum of emerging deeptech industries.
Its investment scope now covers intelligent driving, embodied intelligence, advanced materials, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum technology, new energy, commercial aerospace, and brain-computer interface (BCI). It also invests selectively in healthcare, biotech, and life sciences.
Throughout 2025, Hengxu Capital said it has deployed south of 1.4 billion yuan ($201.3 million) across 19 deals, of which over 20% deals were at the early funding stage into emerging sectors.
Some of its newly added portfolio companies include Haier Energy, the new energy business majority-owned by Chinese home appliance giant Haier Group; as well as Level 4 RoboVan solutions developer Neolix, which in October 2025 raised over $600 million in a Stone Venture-led Series D round.
A key factor in its RMB fundraising success is the firm’s ability to deliver returns. In 2025, Hengxu Capital achieved exits from 12 portfolio companies through various exit routes, including secondary share sales, M&As, equity transfers, and share buybacks. In the same year, over 30 Hengxu-backed companies managed to secure follow-on financing with valuation increases, according to data from the firm.
Since its inception in 2019, Hengxu Capital has booked the initial public offerings (IPOs) of 19 portfolio companies, including six in 2025. It claims to have “more than 10 companies” in the IPO process.
