This article is from the cooperative media: dongsishi capital (ID: dsstcapital) and written by Li Tongwei. Cloud hunting is authorized to release.

Sequoia once again increased its stake in a scientist start-up company.

According to Tianyan survey, on April 13, Shenzhen Sequoia Hanchen equity investment partnership, a new shareholder of Beijing Zhongke Haoxin Technology Co., Ltd. Zhongkehaoxin was incubated in the Institute of automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, focusing on DSP chips. It has completed five rounds of financing for more than three years since its establishment in January 2019.

Looking at the case of Sequoia’s investment in semiconductor enterprises in 2022, the pace of selling is stable. In four months, six semiconductor enterprises have been sold successively. In addition to zhongkehaoxin, two enterprises have also been born in Colleges and universities and scientific research institutes, and the founders once belonged to the ranks of scientific researchers.

Chinese Academy of Sciences scientist Entrepreneurship

This is a typical story of a scientist starting a business.

In 2007, Li Renwei was escorted to the Institute of automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he stayed for more than 10 years. Zhongke Haoxin’s office is also in a building 2 kilometers away from the Institute of automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Li Renwei’s research fields include computer architecture and integrated circuit design. Now he is an associate researcher of the Institute of automation. The entrepreneurial direction of Zhongke Haoxin is closely related to his research direction. Zhongkehaoxin technology aims at the two fields of machine vision and industrial automation, which is based on the DSP chip of risc-v instruction set.

What is DSP? It is known as one of the “four pieces of chip”. Its biggest advantage is to process digital signals in real time. It can be widely used in communication, computing, consumer electronics, automatic control and other fields. What is risc-v?

This is an open source instruction set architecture, which can be said to be relatively cutting-edge. Compared with most instruction sets, it is also free to be used for any purpose and allows anyone to design, manufacture and sell risc-v chips and software.

In fact, for a long time, the DSP chip market has been monopolized by foreign giants, especially arm and Intel. They have important instruction sets and are not open to the outside world. The most important feature of risc-v is openness. When zhongkehaoxin was founded, there was no team or company in the industry to develop DSP based on risc-v instruction set.

Based on years of research experience, Li Renwei decided to give it a try. After obtaining the investment in the second half of 2018, he was officially established in January 2019, with a start-up team of about 10 people, mostly from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The angel round investor of Zhongke Haoxin is Beijing micro core technology, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Neville technology. Neville technology, established in 2008, is a listed company. After the acquisition of silex in Sweden in 2016, the company officially entered the MEMS field on a large scale and was also renamed saimicroelectronics. The company focuses on the semiconductor business, focusing on the development of MEMS process development and wafer manufacturing business, and the layout of Gan materials and devices business. At the beginning, he invested in Kehao core and saw its technical accumulation in the field of digital signal processor and chip design.

According to tianyancha information, at present, microchip technology plans to transfer its zhongkehao core 22. 6597% of the equity is transferred to Dingxin future at the price of 61.9009 million yuan. After the completion of this transaction, wechat technology will no longer participate in zhongkehaoxin.

Meanwhile, in March 2021, zhongkehaoxin completed the pre-A round of financing with tens of millions of Yuan led by Sequoia China; On April 13, 2022, Sequoia participated in zhongkehaoxin again. Therefore, this time, Sequoia hit Kehao core for the second time.

In March 2021, zhongkehao chip was mass produced, and its customer groups covered industrial control and motor drive, consumer electronics, new energy and other fields. Taking advantage of the lack of core, it didn’t seem so difficult to knock on the door of the enterprise.

As a scientist, Li Renwei also experienced pain.

It is not easy for any researcher to transform from undertaking national projects and devoting himself to doing research to understanding the market demand. Li Renwei once said, “after the establishment of the company, the consideration is no longer how to achieve the best product indicators or technology, but how to choose the market, operate the company and open up the supply chain. Chip is an extremely” money burning “field, and the team must give the products recognized by the market in order to be trusted by investors.”

Despite the current mass production of products, the challenge is still great. Affected by the epidemic, the production capacity of many chip foundries has been tight, and even the quotation has been raised. For chip design companies like Zhongke Haoxin, it is difficult to find the capacity of wafer manufacturing, packaging and testing upstream of the industrial chain.

The wafer production capacity is tight and the supply chain is under pressure, but the enthusiasm of the demand side increases instead of decreasing, which is a common feature of the chip industry. Although the semiconductor industry is today’s online celebrity industry, its essential characteristics have always existed - high capital investment and long cycle. Enterprises will finally see whether they have long-term viability after the waves wash away the sand.

Sequoia’s enthusiasm for semiconductor enterprises remains unchanged

In less than five months in 2022, Sequoia invested in six chip companies, maintaining the rhythm of at least one per month.

In early April, Gencun technology completed tens of millions of yuan of pre-A round of financing, led by Sequoia China and followed by Baidu venture capital, the old shareholder. Gencun technology is the only start-up company in China that designs, develops and sells chips based on MRAM technology. It is headquartered in Shenzhen, Shanghai and France and has subsidiaries and R & D centers. At present, the company has successfully produced a chip.

At the beginning of March, Xinxiang technology completed hundreds of millions of yuan of a + round financing, led by Bohai industry and investment fund, followed by Guolian Xinchuang, Zhongnan venture capital and Fangdao fund, and additional investment by old shareholders Sequoia Capital, Hillhouse capital and Huadeng international.

This is a domestic CIM system service provider of a semiconductor factory. Computer integrated manufacturing system CIM is a life-class system of semiconductor manufacturing, which is composed of dozens of software systems with high access threshold. It has been monopolized by international companies for decades.

In the past two years, the voice of domestic substitution has gradually increased, and Chinese manufacturers have entered the center of the stage. It is reported that Xinxiang technology provides CIM solutions for more than ten 12 inch wafer factories in Hefei, Wuhan, Hangzhou and other places.

Shen Congcong, co-founder of Xinxiang technology, has been engaged in semiconductor consulting, serving customers including Samsung Semiconductor, Hynix Semiconductor, etc. In 2015, he and his friends