The primary market evolved amidst profound transformations in 2025. On one hand, a wave of disruptive technology led by artificial intelligence swept the globe, driving capital concentration towards a select few leading projects. On the other hand, geopolitical factors reshaped capital flows and security boundaries, giving rise to new investment themes such as defense technology, aerospace, and quantum computing.
According to KPMG research statistics, the first three quarters of 2025 saw approximately 22,500 global venture capital investment events, remaining largely flat year-on-year. The total disclosed investment amount reached about $348.1 billion, marking a significant 44.8% increase compared to the same period in 2024. Notably, leading AI companies like OpenAI, xAI, and Anthropic accumulated massive investments of $40 billion, $25 billion, and $16.5 billion respectively within the year. The fundraising side remained relatively cautious; PitchBook data indicated that by the end of September, only 823 global venture capital funds had raised $80 billion, a stark contrast to the 4,430 funds and $412 billion raised during the same period in 2022.
IPO and M&A transactions staged a strong rebound. Dealogic data revealed that 1,372 companies globally successfully went public in 2025, raising a total of approximately $170.6 billion, achieving the best performance since 2022. Particularly noteworthy, Hong Kong IPO fundraising surpassed that of Nasdaq, claiming the top spot globally. The total scale of M&A transactions reached about $4.8 trillion, with 166 deals exceeding $5 billion, both setting new records since 2021. M&A activity in the technology sector accounted for over one-fifth of the total volume.
Despite being influenced by similar global trends and macroeconomic factors, China presented a different narrative in 2025. An early-year policy document from the State Council aimed to standardize government investment funds regarding their establishment, investment, and operations, striving to enhance the efficiency of fiscal fund usage and ensure precise support for major national strategies. Mid-year, the China Securities Regulatory Commission introduced a package of measures to deepen reforms on the STAR Market, restarting listings for unprofitable companies under its fifth set of standards and expanding the scope to include frontier areas like AI, commercial aerospace, and the low-altitude economy. Towards year-end, massive national venture capital guidance funds were simultaneously launched in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, with a combined registered capital exceeding 120 billion yuan, 70% of which is designated for seed-stage or early-stage projects.
Furthermore, the financial asset investment companies affiliated with banks achieved substantial breakthroughs during the year. By November 2025, just the five major state-owned banks had newly established 99 AIC funds, with a total scale of 198 billion yuan. CCB Financial Asset Investment Co., Ltd., together with Shenzhen State-owned Assets, initiated the first AIC fund of funds, the Shenzhen Jianyuan Zhengxing Equity Investment Fund, with a target size of 20 billion yuan. The National Social Security Fund, in collaboration with Jiangsu Province, Suzhou City, and ICBC Financial Asset Investment, established the Jiangsu Social Security Sci-Tech Innovation Fund, whose first phase reached 50 billion yuan.
Supported by "patient capital," China's primary market is undergoing a "structural repair" centered around "hard tech" sectors like semiconductors, AI, and humanoid robots, facilitated by the deep involvement of state capital and industrial capital. Based on publicly disclosed data and policies from January 1 to December 31, 2025, the following annual review summarizes the domestic equity investment market's performance using six keywords.
The first keyword is Fundraising Recovery. Data from the Asset Management Association of China shows that industry fundraising shifted from quantity expansion to quality improvement in 2025. As of November 30, there were 11,567 surviving private equity and venture capital managers, a net decrease of 553 year-on-year. The number of surviving private equity funds stood at 29,971, slightly down 1.4% year-on-year, but their scale reached 11.18 trillion yuan, a modest increase of 2.3%. The number of surviving venture capital funds was 27,064, with a scale of 3.57 trillion yuan, growing by 8.6% and 6.6% respectively.
Regarding incremental data, 112 new private equity and venture capital fund managers were registered in 2025, roughly flat year-on-year, while 662 fund managers were deregistered, a decrease of 28.7%. Newly filed private equity funds totaled 1,696, a 12.2% increase, with the growth concentrated mainly in the second quarter and after August. Newly filed venture capital funds reached 3,208, a 22.4% increase, maintaining positive growth since March.
Notably, the fundraising situation for USD funds showed improvement. During the statistical period, Source Code Capital completed the fundraising for its new growth fund, including both RMB and USD denominations, with a total size of $600 million. This fund focuses on two main directions: AI+ and Global+, with an investment period of 5 years, an exit period of up to 20 years, and an overall lifespan of 25 years.
Monolith Capital achieved final closes for its USD VC Fund II and RMB VC Fund I, with the combined size of the dual-currency funds reaching $488 million. The USD fund will continue to focus on areas like large AI models, foundational AI software layers, embodied intelligence, and hardware, while the RMB fund will cover AI chips and computing infrastructure.
Granite Asia's private credit fund announced the completion of its first round of fundraising, exceeding $350 million. Institutional investors in this round included sovereign wealth funds such as Aranda Principal Strategies under Temasek, Malaysia's Khazanah Nasional Berhad, and Indonesia's INA.
Simultaneously, global PE giant KKR's first RMB fund completed its filing. Temasek's wholly-owned subsidiary True Light Capital and global asset management firm Earnest Partners also set up offices in China and completed their registrations as private fund managers.
According to incomplete statistics, USD funds from H.Fen Capital, Mifang Health Fund, and CBC Group all reached final closes in 2025. Institutions like Lightspeed China Partners, Qiming Venture Partners, Black Ant Capital, and INCE Capital were also reported to be raising new USD funds, with LPs primarily from Europe and the Middle East.
Public data shows that 12 funds raised over 3 billion yuan in 2025, with a total fundraising amount of 55.806 billion yuan. Institutions that raised funds more than twice during the year included CBC Group, Vision Knight Capital, CICC Capital, Cathay Capital, GLP, Yuanhe Puhua, Hony Capital, and Stillwater Lake Capital.
Dreame Technology's CVC arm, Sky Workshop Capital, saw the first phase of its inaugural fund, the Shaoxing Ten-Billion-Yuan Industrial Fund, raise 10 billion yuan. It will invest around AI, embodied intelligence, and the Dreame industry chain. CBC Group's two funds raised during the year also collectively exceeded 10 billion yuan. Its first RMB healthcare M&A fund had a first close of over 7 billion yuan, targeting core areas like biopharma, medical devices, and consumer healthcare. Its second USD credit fund raised approximately $500 million, providing financing structures based on drug royalties and sales revenue primarily to biotech companies with products nearing approval or in the commercialization stage, as well as medical device or service enterprises.
The second keyword is Artificial Intelligence. According to public data, 5,599 companies completed 6,343 investment deals in China's domestic primary market in 2025, representing year-on-year increases of 2.6% and 7.5% respectively. The total disclosed investment amount reached 440.099 billion yuan, a 20.5% decrease compared to the full year of 2024.
Looking at quarters, investment activity continued to contract in the first half of 2025. The first and second quarters completed 1,411 and 1,373 deals respectively, down 3.0% and 8.0% year-on-year. Disclosed investment amounts were 79.704 billion yuan and 78.721 billion yuan, plunging 56.7% and 21.5% respectively. As the environment stabilized, interest rates fell, and innovation waves drove optimism in the second half, investors became noticeably more active. The third quarter saw 1,740 deals, a 24.3% increase, with disclosed investment soaring 59.0% to 151.699 billion yuan. The fourth quarter exhibited a trend of "volume increase, value decrease," with deals up 17.1% to 1,819, but disclosed investment down 25.2% to 129.975 billion yuan.
Artificial Intelligence was the dominant investment theme throughout 2025. During the statistical period, 788 domestic AI companies received 1,015 investments, with a total disclosed investment of 65.604 billion yuan. In contrast, 478 AI companies received 553 investments totaling 39.151 billion yuan in 2024.
Within AI, intelligent robots were the most sought-after sub-sector. In 2025, intelligent robot companies completed 530 investments with a total disclosed amount of 34.465 billion yuan, surging 116.3% and 242.2% compared to 2024. These two metrics accounted for approximately 52.2% and 52.5% of the AI industry's total deal count and amount, increasing by nearly 8 and 27 percentage points respectively from 2024.
Robot companies were also flocking to the secondary market. "Yushu Technology" completed its IPO辅导 in November, while "Woan Robot" made a final-hour listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on December 30. "Zhiyuan Robot" and "Qiteng Robot" gained control of A-share listed companies through "share transfer + tender offer" methods, seen as backdoor listings. By the end of 2025, at least 34 companies in the robot industry chain, including "Kales," "Sanwood Robot," "Ledong Robot," and "Standard Robot," were queuing outside the capital market gates.
Meanwhile, the "Matthew Effect" became apparent in the foundational large model sector, which cooled significantly in 2025. During the period, AI model layer companies completed only 22 investments totaling 9.416 billion yuan, down 8.3% and 52.9% respectively compared to 2024. Their share of the AI industry's deal count dropped from 4.3% to 2.2%, and their share of the investment amount plummeted from 51.0% to 14.4%.
This sharp decline in热度 stemmed from a stabilized competitive landscape among the top tier, with resources, users, and capital further concentrating around the leading players. Internet giants like ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent entered the fray, integrating technology with mature e-commerce, advertising, social media, and hardware businesses, highlighting their commercial advantages. In mid-December, both "Zhipu AI" and "MiniMax" passed hearings in Hong Kong, vying to be the "first AI foundational model stock." They successfully listed on January 8 and 9, 2026, with market capitalizations once reaching over HKD 50 billion and HKD 70 billion respectively. AI agents began attracting attention, with "ManusAI" being acquired by Meta for billions of dollars.
Previously popular models like Kimi and DeepSeek, while their downloads and user activity fell short of expectations, saw Kimi's parent company, "Moonshot AI," complete a $500 million Series C round at year-end. Its founder announced the company held over 10 billion yuan in cash reserves. DeepSeek published a paper proposing a new architecture to address large model training congestion.
In terms of overall industry performance, Advanced Manufacturing continued to lead. This sector saw 1,303 investment deals, a slight increase of 2.8%, but the disclosed investment amount was 67.579 billion yuan, down 43.0%. Within this, the integrated circuit sub-sector had 661 deals, slightly higher than 621 in 2024, accounting for about 50.7% of advanced manufacturing deals. However, its disclosed investment of 41.374 billion yuan was nearly halved compared to 2024, constituting about 61.2% of the advanced manufacturing total. The aerospace sector entered a period where technological breakthroughs and commercial demand resonated, with deal count and disclosed amount increasing by 54.2% and 23.8% respectively.
The third keyword is Investing Early and Small. Regarding investment stages, the strategy of "investing early and small" remained dominant in 2025. Public statistics show that Series A investments were the most numerous, with 2,189 deals, a 22.8% increase year-on-year, though the total disclosed amount fell 15.9% to 69.452 billion yuan. These figures accounted for 34.5% of total deals and 15.8% of total disclosed amount. Strategic investment rounds recorded the highest total disclosed amount: 437 deals amounted to 174.138 billion yuan. Among 12 mega-deals exceeding 4 billion yuan each, over 80% were strategic investment rounds.
Early-stage investments, including Seed, Angel, and Pre-A rounds, totaled 2,110 deals, accounting for about one-third of the total. Their combined disclosed investment reached 43.117 billion yuan, representing about 9.8%. Specifically, Seed round deal count and amount surged 59.5% and 179.4% year-on-year. Angel round deal count and amount grew 3.3% and 20.3%. Although Pre-A round deal count decreased 8.0%, the disclosed investment amount increased 37.7%.
Rising investment amounts for early-stage companies was a key market trend. Typically, Seed rounds range from 100,000 to 1 million yuan, Angel rounds from 500,000 to 15 million yuan, and Pre-A rounds from 5 million to 15 million yuan. In 2025, however, the proportion of deals where the disclosed amount exceeded these upper limits was 50.0% for Seed rounds, 20.7% for Pre-A rounds, and 11.2% for Angel rounds.
Notable examples include AI styling company "Gensmo" raising $60 million in a Seed round, and traditional Chinese medicine company "Hualan Gene" securing up to 800 million yuan in an Angel round. AI computing chip firm "Xiwang Sunrise" raised nearly 1 billion yuan in a Pre-A round from investors including Shenzhen Co-Win Capital, Huaxu Fund under Sany Group, Fourth Paradigm, Youzu Interactive, Beijing Lier, and Haitong Kaiyuan. Clean energy company "Alcohol Hydrogen Technology" raised over $200 million in a Pre-A++ round led by Hangzhou High-tech Financial Investment, with participation from Xiangtan Electrochemical Industrial Investment and Nanxun Industrial Fund, for R&D and ecosystem development.
The fourth keyword is Yangtze River Delta Integration. In terms of investment regions, the Yangtze River Delta maintained its top position in activity. Jiangsu province led decisively in deal count with 1,256 deals, accounting for about 19.8% of the total, and a disclosed investment of 51.656 billion yuan, about 11.7%. Including Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Anhui, the Yangtze River Delta region saw 3,111 deals, constituting 49.0% of the national total, with a disclosed investment of 159.753 billion yuan, representing 36.3%. In other words, nearly half of all publicly disclosed domestic primary market investments went to companies in the Yangtze River Delta, attracting over one-third of the market's capital.
Jiangsu's top five industries by investor attention were Advanced Manufacturing, Healthcare, AI, New Materials, and Production Manufacturing, each with over 100 deals, collectively accounting for 74.5% of Jiangsu's deal volume. Particularly, AI deals and disclosed investment in Jiangsu reached 131 and 4.101 billion yuan respectively, growing 98.5% and 89.9% year-on-year, accounting for 12.9% and 6.3% of the respective national totals for the AI赛道. Production Manufacturing also achieved double-digit growth in both metrics, accounting for 21.4% of national deal count and 10.6% of national amount in its sector. Healthcare attracted the highest investment amount in Jiangsu, raising 12.815 billion yuan, a 31.2% increase. The Automotive/Transportation sector also surpassed 12 billion yuan in investment, with XCMG Group's heavy-duty truck unit "XCMG Auto" raising 6.444 billion yuan from 30 strategic investors in a single round.
Overall, Beijing recorded the highest total disclosed investment amount at 95.879 billion yuan, constituting 21.8% of the national total. Among 50 deals exceeding 1 billion yuan each, 16.0% involved companies registered in Beijing. Highlights included embodied multi-modal general robot developer "Yinhe General Robot" securing $300 million in its latest round, setting a record for the embodied intelligence sector and pushing its post-money valuation over $3 billion, making it a global leader in humanoid robotics. Private rocket company "Galactic Energy" raised 2.4 billion yuan in a Series D round from investors including the Beijing Commercial Aerospace and Low-Altitude Economy Industrial Investment Fund, Nanjing Innovation Investment Group, various Nanjing Luhe District investment platforms, and funds under Sichuan Industrial振兴 Fund Group. The company formally submitted its IPO辅导 filing in October.
The fifth keyword is Primary Buying Secondary. Driven by favorable M&A policies and industrial upgrade demands, China's M&A market exhibited two major phenomena in 2025.
The first was equity investment institutions密集 acquiring foreign brands. Global coffee giant Starbucks sold a 60% stake in its China business to Boyu Capital for $4 billion, establishing a joint venture to operate the market. CPE Funds formed a joint venture, Burger King China, with the fast-food chain, injecting $350 million in initial capital, giving CPE约83% ownership. IDG Capital acquired the Chinese business of French yogurt brand Yoplait from Tian Tu Capital for no more than 1.8 billion yuan. HongShan acquired a majority stake in speaker manufacturer Marshall Group for €1.1 billion, followed shortly by the €2.5 billion acquisition of "Golden Goose." After successfully acquiring German automation firm Ruhlamat Group early in the year, Luckin Coffee's major shareholder, Centurium Capital, recently set its sights on premium coffee brands COSTA, Blue Coffee, and %Arabica.
The second phenomenon involved investment institutions or unicorn companies acquiring listed firms. Qiming Venture Partners spent 425 million yuan to acquire intelligent public transport solutions provider "Tianmai Technology," marking not only the first deep involvement of a domestic PE firm in a listed company via acquisition but also signaling traditional growth funds systematically entering the M&A arena. Subsequently, Chuxin Fund took control of custom home furnishing company "Pierre Cardin" for 839 million yuan, aiming for a 29.99% stake. DCP Capital acquired sweetener company "Layn Natural Ingredients" and injected core asset, food nutrient fortifier company "Jinkangpu," into the listed entity. Chery Group's CVC arm, Ruicheng Fund, became the controlling shareholder of education tech company "Honghe Technology" with an investment of 1.575 billion yuan.
Additionally, "Zhiyuan Robot" agreed to acquire about 29.99% of eco-material developer "Shangwei New Materials" and launched a tender offer for约37.0%, totaling约2.102 billion yuan. "Zhonghao Xinying" acquired 10.8% of polymer materials company "Tianpu股份" via agreement, with its concert party acquiring 8.0%, planning a full tender offer after capital increase, totaling约804 million yuan. "Qiteng Robot" agreed to acquire 29.99% of natural gas firm "Shengtong Energy" and launched a tender offer for 15.0%, totaling约1.668 billion yuan. Dreame Tech founder Yu Hao planned to acquire 279 million shares of can manufacturer "Jiamei Packaging" and launch a tender offer for 233 million shares, totaling up to 2.282 billion yuan.
This indicates that leading PE firms are no longer satisfied with financial investments but seek control through acquisitions to deeply participate in company and brand operations, providing industrial赋能 like supply chain optimization, online channel expansion, and market growth. Unlisted acquirers are typically hard tech companies with core technologies, using the mainstream "share transfer + tender offer" model to invest in leading traditional industry firms, gaining listed financing platforms while achieving industrial synergy or business transformation.
The sixth keyword is Hong Kong Stock Market. According to Zero2IPO Research data, 247 Chinese companies went public globally in 2025, a 26.7% increase year-on-year, with total IPO proceeds reaching approximately 326.632 billion yuan, surging 126.4%. The second half saw 138 Chinese company listings, raising about 205.272 billion yuan, accounting for 55.9% and 62.8% of the respective annual totals.
By market, 116 Chinese companies listed on the A-share market during the period, up 16.0% year-on-year, with IPO proceeds of about 128.692 billion yuan, nearly doubling compared to 2024. "Huadian New Energy" led with 15.801 billion yuan in fundraising, followed by "Moore Threads," "Xian Yicai," and "Muxi股份" raising 8.000 billion, 4.636 billion, and 4.197 billion yuan respectively.
Overseas IPO activity rebounded significantly, primarily driven by the Hong Kong market. After four years, HKEX returned to the top spot globally in fundraising. Its listing channels for pre-revenue biotech companies and specialist technology companies proved highly effective, with over 70% of new listings coming from IT, biopharma, new energy, and advanced manufacturing sectors. The first-day break rate was about 28.8%, the lowest in nearly five years. Over 100 IPOs were oversubscribed, with "Jinye International Group" setting a new HKEX record with a public offering subscription倍数 exceeding 11,500 times.
105 Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong in 2025, a 69.4% increase, raising a total of 192.422 billion yuan, up 175.4%. Among them, 19 were already listed domestically, with these A+H dual listings raising 107.975 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 60% of the Hong Kong total. Eight companies raised over HKD 10 billion each: "CATL" (HKD 41.006 billion), "Zijin Gold International" (HKD 28.732 billion), "Sany Heavy Industry" (HKD 15.349 billion), "Seres" (HKD 14.283 billion), "Hengrui Pharmaceuticals" (HKD 11.374 billion), "Sanhua Intelligent Controls" (HKD 10.736 billion), "Haitian Flavouring" (HKD 10.571 billion), and "Chery Automobile" (HKD 10.417 billion). A+H firms constituted 75.0% of this group and accounted for 72.5% of the total fundraising amount.
The US market has gradually become "marginalized" for Chinese companies, with listings and fundraising continuing to cool. During the period, 26 Chinese companies listed on Nasdaq, down 21.2% year-on-year, raising approximately 5.519 billion yuan, a decrease of 31.4%. "Bawang茶姬" raised 2.964 billion yuan, accounting for nearly half of the total fundraising by Chinese companies in the US.
According to IPOzhizao statistics, the equity investment firm with the most IPOs in 2025 was HongShan, with 17 star projects including Pony.ai, Moore Threads, Muxi股份, and JD Industrials. Shenzhen Capital Group, CICC Capital, IDG Capital, and Yuanhe Holdings followed closely, with 16, 15, 14, and 14 projects successfully entering the capital market respectively.
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