Capital Patience Tested in the Hard Technology Era

The most difficult period for the venture capital and investment industest has passed, and 2025 is the turning point: this is almost the largegest consensus among the investors interviewed by Jiemian News in the past year.

In 2025, the Chinese venture capital and investment market clearly recovered. According to the data from CVSource of China Venture Capital, from January to November 2025, there were approximately 10,007 investment events in the Chinese VC/PE market, a year-on-year increase of about 30.33%; during the same period, the investment scale was about 1193 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 31.54%; on the fundraising side, the number of newly established funds during the same period was about 4,871, a year-on-year increase of about 16.73%.

As 2025 is coming to an conclude, Jiemian News reviewed the eight major trconcludes in the venture capital and investment circle this year. From the semiconductor IPO frenzy to the short dramas widely discussed on the streets, from the embodied innotifyigence of human – machine interaction to the booming 3D printing industest, they not only have in – depth breakthroughs in hard technology but also rapid implementation in consumer scenarios; they not only continue the AI wave but also witness the in – depth integration of traditional industries and digital technologies.

Hard technology represented by AI remains the most frequent keyword in the venture capital and investment circle at present. If in the era of mobile Internet, the most important indicators for investors were traffic and scale, in the new cycle dominated by hard technology, it not only tests the technological barriers of start – up companies but also the patience of capital.

This year’s venture capital and investment market is more lively and more pragmatic. In 2025, China’s position on the global innovation map has become clearer, that is, from the concept craze to the observable business reality.

Semiconductor: The Harvest Season is Coming

The semiconductor industest was the hottest in terms of financing in China in 2025, without a doubt.

In 2025, the Chinese semiconductor industest ranked among the top in terms of the number and scale of financing events. According to CVSource data, there were approximately 1,419 financing events in the Chinese semiconductor field throughout the year, with a total financing scale exceeding 18.5 billion yuan, far exceeding other industries; the IPO activities in this field were also active. In 2025 alone, more than 20 chip – related enterprises went public on the capital market, raising more than 4.5 billion yuan in total.

The listing of Moore Threads, known as the “Chinese version of NVIDIA”, was the moment when the sentiment was ignited. On the first day of listing, Moore Threads’ stock price soared by more than 460% at one point. Immediately after, Muxi Co., Ltd., which completed its IPO, saw its stock price on the first – day of listing skyrocket by nearly 700%. Behind the IPO frenzy, a series of institutions such as Sequoia Capital, Wuyuan Capital, GGV Capital, and Matrix Partners became the winners. In the upcoming 2026, the IPOs of Biren Technology, Tianshu Zhixin, and Suiyuan Technology will also come one after another.

It’s not only venture capital institutions that are actively involved in the semiconductor industest layout, but also national – level and local capital. In 2025, the National Integrated Circuit Industest Investment Fund (the Big Fund) preferred to invest in equipment and design companies, while local industrial funds focapplyd on supporting local supply – chain enterprises. The flow of these funds displays a common trconclude: they no longer focus on concept packaging but rather value technological breakthroughs and industrial – chain advantages.

Another clear signal is that capital’s attention to niche tracks is increasing. Multiple financing events worth hundreds of millions of yuan in fields such as chip design, third – generation semiconductors (such as silicon carbide devices), photomquestions, and equipment all indicate that investors are shifting from traditional parameters and capacity expansion to niche markets with higher technological barriers.

The Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) pointed out that China will still be the largest market for semiconductor equipment investment globally in 2025, with the total expconcludeiture expected to be about $38 billion (about 270 billion yuan), continuing to lead global semiconductor equipment investment. This is of course not the conclude but the starting point for China’s semiconductor industest to enter the next round of the competition cycle.

Embodied Innotifyigence: Another Generational Opportunity after the Large – Scale Model

In the previous two years when ChatGPT amazed the world and AI large – scale models became the global scientific and technological innovation protagonists, a group of forces in the industest had already branched out to the embodied innotifyigence track to start their layout, but they only received limited capital recognition.

It wasn’t until the launchning of 2025 when Unitree Robotics brought its robots to the Spring Festival Gala stage and detonated public opinion with a novel performance method that the track it belongs to finally won a huge amount of attention.

The collective investment of global technology giants further magnified the trconclude effect. This year, Tesla fully promoted the mass production of Optimus, OpenAI was reported to have reorganized its robotics department, Meta established a special research team for humanoid robots, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos founded a new company focutilizing on AI – driven physical – world tquestions.

Embodied innotifyigence companies and their industrial chains stepped into the spotlight – from single – skill demonstrations to generalization in complex scenarios, from R & D verification to mass – production delivery, from technological concepts to national strategies – this industest quickly won capital consensus, and hot money poured in intensively.

According to IT Juzi data, in the first three quarters of 2025, there were 610 new primary – market financing events in the domestic robotics industest, doubling the 294 events in the same period last year. In terms of the estimated amount, in the first three quarters of 2025, the total financing of domestic robotics start – up companies was about 50 billion yuan, 2.5 times that of the same period last year.

The rapid increase in valuation is another sign of a trconcludey industest. The valuations of well – recognized first – tier companies in the industest such as Zhipu Robotics, Unitree Robotics, Galaxy Universal, Xinghai Map, and Xingdong Era have at least doubled since the conclude of last year, and the valuations of some individual enterprises have increased several times. Some unicorns have even launched their listing plans. A considerable number of investors quickly switched from a wait – and – see attitude in the previous two years to increasing their stakes.

On the commercialization front, some scenario – based demands have begun to materialize, and enterprises are competing in terms of order volume and mass – production delivery. This is a necessary value verification for the industest to continue to receive capital support. IDC predicts that the market size of China’s embodied innotifyigence robot market will increase from $1.4 billion in 2025 to $77 billion in 2030, with an average annual compound growth rate of up to 94%.

AI Agent: The “Comfort Zone” for Chinese Entrepreneurs

Some investors predicted early on that when the model capabilities become relatively mature and the AI application layer explodes, it will definitely be the moment for Chinese entrepreneurs to shine, especially in 2025 represented by AI Agents.

At the launchning of the year, the Butterfly Effect team’s general AI Agent product, Manus, first opened up the market’s imagination space for AI – driven workflow transformation. This product not only attracted many top – tier domestic capital but also the overseas leading US – dollar fund Benchmark participated in increasing its stake. Its valuation is declared to have reached $500 million. Among Internet giants, ByteDance’s Kouzi Space and Baidu’s Xinxiang quickly followed suit with similar products.

AI Agents thus became the primary trconclude for seed – round investments in the first half of 2025. According to the international venture capital database Crunchbase, as of June 2025, AI Agent start – up companies had raised a total of about $700 million, with the financing amount ranging from $9 million to $200 million.

Due to the relatively clear Product – Market – Fit (PMF), vertical – field AI Agents are more favored by most investors. Among them, fields such as programming, design, medicine, finance, and architecture are particularly prominent.

Genspark AI and LiblibAI (Lovart) are the two dark horses in the vertical – field AI Agent segment. The former started from AI search and completed two rounds of financing totaling $375 million this year; the latter is considered the most successful design Agent globally at present and completed a $130 million Series B financing in October, which was the largest single – deal financing in the domestic AI application track this year.

Looking overseas, in the Vibe Coding track represented by Lovable, its valuation reached $6.6 billion after completing the Series B financing, and Cursor’s valuation exceeded $29 billion after announcing its Series D financing at the conclude of the year.

The fundamental reason for the rise of the AI Agent track is that the products recognized by the market can generate considerable cash flow, which is the most obvious advantage compared with the large – scale capital consumption in the model layer. Manus announced at the conclude of the year that its Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) had exceeded $100 million; Genspark is reported to have achieved an ARR of $36 million within 45 days of its launch.

Investors’ attention and expectations for this track clearly won’t stop. Market research firm MarketsandMarkets predicts that the market size of AI Agents will soar from $5.1 billion in 2024 to $47.1 billion in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 44.8%.

AI Glasses: The Next Entrance – Level Hardware?

When voice, vision, and reasoning abilities are integrated into wearable devices, AI may detonate the next round of innovation in entrance – level innotifyigent hardware products. In 2025, this judgment was first verified in AI glasses.

Since the launchning of the year, with the gradual maturity of lightweight optical solutions, conclude – side large – scale models, and cloud – conclude collaborative architectures, the inflection point for AI glasses to shift from geek toys to daily devices has become clearer.

Different from early AR glasses that emphasized display and immersion, the new – generation AI glasses emphasize seamless interaction and real – time assistance – utilizing voice as the entrance, integrating visual understanding, information retrieval, instant translation, meeting minutes, and life recording, becoming a real personal AI Agent hardware carrier.

Overseas trconcludes have confirmed this judgment. Consumer – grade AI glasses represented by Ray – Ban Meta have been continuously selling well in the North American market, prompting the industest to re – evaluate the potential of “non – display” smart glasses.

This is a track with relatively low capital enthusiasm but clear market enthusiasm. According to IT Juzi data, as of December 1st, there were a total of 36 financing events in the global smart glasses track in 2025, with the total financing amount estimated to be about 4.367 billion yuan, which is compacter than that of trconcludey industries.

Chinese entrepreneurs have been particularly active in this wave. Manufacturers such as Rokid, XREAL, Thunderbird Innovation (RayNeo), and INMO have launched new AI glasses products for the mass market this year, with the price range significantly decreasing and the wearing experience approaching that of ordinary glasses. At the same time, giants such as Xiaomi and Huawei have also entered the market through their ecological chains or self – research, significantly accelerating the maturity of the supply chain and the market education process.

From an investment logic perspective, the key reason why AI glasses became a hot venture capital trconclude in 2025 is that their applyr demand and business model have become clearer: supported by AI capabilities, in addition to hardware sales, subscription – based AI services, enterprise – level solutions, and developer ecosystems are regarded as more imaginative long – term revenue sources.

Compared with the previous round of the AR/VR investment cycle, this round of funds pays more attention to the product implementation rhythm, the ability to increase the shipment volume, and the collaborative relationship with model manufacturers and the mobile phone ecosystem.

Market research institutions generally believe that AI glasses will become the next – generation personal terminal most likely to carry general AI capabilities after smartphones and TWS earphones. According to the IDC data report, in the first half of 2025, the global smart glasses market shipment volume reached 4.065 million units, a year – on – year increase of 64.2%. It is expected that the global smart glasses market shipment volume will exceed 40 million units by 2029, with the Chinese market having the highest growth rate globally.

AI Toys: Emotional Value is an Everlasting Necessity

AI can reinvent all hardware, and toys are no exception.

The maturity of large – scale model capabilities has enabled ordinary hardware devices to have the ability of continuous dialogue. Compared with humanoid robots that require complex execution functions, companion – type toys have a relatively simple form and more focapplyd scenarios, and can achieve commercialization more quickly. For this reason, capital has paid closer attention to this track.

The statistical data released by IT Juzi displays that there were at least 19 investment and financing events in the domestic AI toy track in 2025. Except for projects with undisclosed investment amounts, most of the investments exceeded tens of millions of yuan, attracting a group of top – tier investment institutions such as Sequoia China, GSR Ventures, Shenzhen Capital Group, and Shunwei Capital to place their bets.

Among them, Havivi, founded by Li Yong, a partner of Tmall Genie, raised 200 million yuan and its valuation has exceeded 1 billion yuan so far. Its interactive dialogue pconcludeant toy BubblePal has sold more than 200,000 units (after excluding returns) since its launch in June 2024, becoming the AI toy company with the largest global shipment volume; Luobo Innotifyigence, founded by Sun Zhaozhi, the former product leader of XPeng Robotics, is also very popular, and the monthly sales of its product “Fuzai” have exceeded 20,000 units.

Zhu Xiaohu, the founding partner of GSR Ventures, once declared in an interview that AI toys might be his boldest investment this year. It was reported that he determined a financing deal after chatting with Sun Zhaozhi, the founder of Luobo Innotifyigence, for less than ten minutes. Zhu Xiaohu’s judgment on this track is that AI creating emotional value is a reliable direction in the current large – scale model application field. “The company is not large, but the token consumption is astonishing.”

However, when AI toys are all equipped with the same large – scale model and apply the same basic sensors, their interaction capabilities are becoming more and more similar, and the model differences are quickly smoothed out by the hardware shells. After the novelty wears off, the usage frequency of many AI toys has significantly decreased, and the return rate is even high. Some investors predict that in the future, the competition in the AI toy field will be about product – definition capabilities.

The popularity of AI toys may fluctuate, but emotional value is an everlasting necessity. As long as there is demand, innovation will continue to emerge.

3D Printing: Awaiting the iPhone Moment

In 2025, large companies and investment institutions were scrambling for tarobtains in the 3D printing industest.

In November, DJI, which rarely creates external investments, built a strategic investment of hundreds of millions of yuan in SmartPie; immediately afterwards, Hillhoapply Capital, Meituan, and Shunwei Capital simultaneously bet on Kuaizao Technology; almost at the same time, Lightweight Manufacturing, founded by Wang Zhiyu, the former 3D printer project leader of Anker, won the favor of the capital of a leading laser listed company; and Atom Reconstruction, which was founded at the launchning of the year, even secured two rounds of financing this year.

More than one 3D printing enterprise informed Jiemian News that the largegest headache this year was not financing but how to reject the money. On the verge of the “iPhone moment” of 3D printing, investors don’t want to miss any company that may explode.

According to the data from Nanjixiong 3D Printing Network, in 2025, there were 100 investment and financing events in the domestic 3D printing industest, 2 – 3 times more than in previous years, involving 81 companies, including consumer – grade and industrial – grade 3D printing enterprises and material suppliers. In 2025, the total investment and financing amount in the domestic 3D printing industest was about 8.4 billion yuan, reversing the previous decline.

Looking at the performance of several leading companies, it’s not difficult to see the popularity of the 3D printing market. According to Leifeng.com, in 2024, the global shipment volume of Tuozhu Technology exceeded 1.2 million units, with a revenue of nearly 6 billion yuan and a net profit margin of more than 30%. This year, its revenue exceeded 10 billion yuan, almost doubling year – on – year; SmartPie’s annual revenue is expected to exceed 2.5 billion yuan, with a year – on – year increase of 30% – 50%.

Compared with the popular AI concept, 3D printing may be a more practical track for implementation at present. Today’s consumer – grade 3D printing devices have bid farewell to complex operation thresholds and are now straightforward for ordinary people to apply. You can purchase a 3D printer with good performance for the price of a mid – range mobile phone, and for less than $5

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