It's harvest season. This is the real MiHoYo. On January 9th, MiniMax will officially IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Many may not know that MiHoYo was an angel investor in MiniMax, holding a 7.34% stake before its listing. For years, MiHoYo has provided both capital and business orders, witnessing the rise of this large model unicorn. On another front, Suplay Super Wanka submitted its listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on the first day of the new year, with MiHoYo being its largest external investor, holding a significant 11.86% stake. Securing two IPOs is truly enviable. This recalls an old rumor in the VC circle years ago: "Have you heard? A game company in Shanghai is sitting on 5 billion yuan in cash, searching the world for investment opportunities." Later, we saw MiHoYo's frequent presence in the VC scene. Now, it seems the season of reaping has arrived.

MiHoYo invested in them, and now they are going public. In fact, MiHoYo's founder and Chairman Liu Wei has known MiniMax's founder and CEO Yan Junjie for a long time. At the end of 2021, Yan Junjie left SenseTime to found MiniMax. Industry rumors suggest that, being in the same Caobeijing Development Zone industrial belt in Shanghai, Liu Wei introduced Yan Junjie to some early-stage investors. It is understood that in early 2022, MiHoYo, together with Hillhouse Capital, IDG Capital, and Yunqi Partners, became angel investors in MiniMax. This positioned MiHoYo as one of MiniMax's earliest strategic industrial investors, accurately timing its entry just before the large model boom. This investment was no accident. As early as 2018, MiHoYo internally established the Inverse Entropy Research Department, focusing on AI and metaverse-related technology R&D. At that time, MiHoYo aimed to leverage investments to secure cutting-edge technology, reducing the computational and R&D costs of developing its own large models. MiniMax's full-modal capabilities aligned perfectly with the needs for game intelligence, facilitating the acceleration of AI integration in gaming. In subsequent funding rounds, MiHoYo occasionally increased its investment, ultimately holding approximately 7.34% of MiniMax before its IPO. Concurrently, Liu Wei also assumed the role of Non-Executive Director at MiniMax, participating in strategic decisions. The relationship extended beyond mere investment. Starting in 2023, MiHoYo became a client of MiniMax, utilizing its models in products like *Honkai: Star Rail* for character behavior control, NPC intelligent dialogue, 3D modeling optimization, and plot generation, thereby providing real-world application scenarios within its game ecosystem. The prospectus reveals that MiniMax specifically lists two "Pioneering Senior Independent Investors"—one is IDG Capital, and the other is MiHoYo. Similarly, another MiHoYo-backed IPO is on the horizon—Suplay. Founded in September 2019, Suplay focuses on trendy toys and collectible cards, positioning itself as a full-industry-chain trendy consumer goods company for Gen Z. In November 2021, MiHoYo led Suplay's Series A+ funding round. At that time, MiHoYo was expanding its IP derivative business. Investing in Suplay undoubtedly helped reduce supply chain and channel costs for self-developed peripherals, while also leveraging Suplay's distribution and operational capabilities to reach a broader Gen Z consumer base, forming a commercial loop of "Game IP + Derivative Consumption." Starting in April 2022, MiHoYo began licensing IPs such as *Genshin Impact*, *Honkai: Star Rail*, and *Zenless Zone Zero*. Initial collaborations included *Genshin Impact* Slime series figures and blind boxes, later expanding to multiple IP character series. In 2024, the *Honkai: Star Rail* "Ruan Mei's Creation" mini figure became a hit, with GMV exceeding 50 million yuan. Simultaneously, MiHoYo Vice President Wu Zhen took up the position of Non-Executive Director at Suplay. Prior to the IPO, MiHoYo held an 11.86% stake, making it the largest external shareholder in Suplay. Overall, MiHoYo holds significant stakes in both companies, acting not only as a major investor but also as an indispensable industrial partner. Almost imperceptibly, MiHoYo has transformed into an IPO harvesting machine.

"The Most Casual VC" Unveiling the investment portfolio behind it. Rewinding to 2011, Cai Haoyu, Liu Wei, and Luo Yuhao started their business together, with MiHoYo setting sail from a dorm room at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Their initial funding was a 100,000 yuan interest-free loan from the Shanghai Technology Innovation Center. Later, after a series of twists and turns, they once faced difficulties securing funding and nearly went bankrupt. In their most desperate hour, Song Tao from Sky-mobi invested 1 million yuan in the young startup team, providing crucial relief. Years later, with the massive success of *Genshin Impact*, MiHoYo soared to become an unparalleled presence in China's gaming industry, amassing substantial wealth through its gaming revenue. Consequently, the VC circle welcomed a super new player—around 2018, MiHoYo, having accumulated significant cash flow, began experimenting with venture capital and has since disclosed dozens of investments. Initially, MiHoYo focused on its familiar territory of gaming, but later extended its reach into frontier technology, making bold and seemingly whimsical investments. Take brain-computer interfaces, for example. Shanghai Lingweiyisi was founded in 2021 through a joint venture between MiHoYo and Professor Lu Baoliang from the Computer Science Department of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, focusing on emotional intelligence technology and brain-computer interface R&D. That same year, MiHoYo also invested in the Brain Disease Center of Ruijin Hospital, affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, primarily collaborating on the development and clinical application of BCI technology, with MiHoYo providing special funding. Liu Wei once publicly discussed the reason for this investment: "Simply because a Jiao Tong University professor wanted to start a business." In May 2022, private rocket technology company Oriental Space (Shandong) Technology Co., Ltd. completed a 400 million yuan Series A funding round, and MiHoYo notably appeared on the investor list. The founder of Oriental Space is Yao Song, a 1992-born top graduate from Tsinghua University. Furthermore, MiHoYo also invested in Shanghai-based nuclear fusion energy commercial company Energy Singularity. Liu Wei indicated this was driven by "sentiment"—stating that "the other party secured two small targets from me with just two PPTs." Looking back, MiHoYo was one of the lead investors in Energy Singularity's first funding round in 2022; it participated again in the Pre-Series A round in April the following year. The founder and CEO of Energy Singularity is Yang Zhao, an '85s-generation graduate from the Physics Department of Peking University. One of his co-founders, Li Zhuyong, is an Associate Researcher in the Electrical Engineering Department of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Although Liu Wei once summarized it somewhat lightly in a speech: "When I was young, I made a few investments, just random bets, purely based on sentiment, and later didn't really manage them"—making it arguably the most casual VC. Yet, it's not hard to see that MiHoYo started betting on projects filled with uncertainty very early on, even venturing into frontier technology areas that few domestic VCs dared to touch at the time. In this light, MiHoYo's founding slogan, "Tech Otakus Save the World," takes on a new layer of meaning.

Using money earned from games to invest in young people. Essentially, MiHoYo's venture capital activities are about betting on the future it believes in. As seen within the circle, MiHoYo's investment style is truly "whimsical." If there is a common thread, it's that the founders they invest in are predominantly young, believe technology can change the world, and share a similar ethos with MiHoYo itself. Take MiniMax, for instance. Yan Junjie is a legendary figure who rose from intern to vice president at SenseTime. Over 70% of the company's team is dedicated to R&D, with core members hailing from top-tier tech institutions like Google, Meta, and ByteDance. They are carving a path in fields where resources and talent congregate. MiHoYo is drawing closer and closer to such young talents. Recall that in October 2023, 36-year-old Cai Haoyu announced he was stepping down from the helm of MiHoYo, with Liu Wei succeeding him as Chairman. At the time, MiHoYo stated: "To adapt to the company's future development needs, Cai Haoyu will devote more energy to researching and applying cutting-edge technology, developing new projects, and connecting domestic and overseas R&D resources." After achieving financial freedom, he turned to embark on another technological journey. Soon, in September 2024, Cai Haoyu's new company surfaced—Anuttacon, an AGI startup project that gathered numerous tech experts and began recruiting talent globally in the AI sphere. In 2025, Anuttacon officially released a demo for the AI-native game *Stars Whisper*. Moreover, last year, MiHoYo's proprietary large model completed its filing, focusing on the entire game production process and supporting AI voice acting, text generation, art optimization, and code debugging. It's reported to increase R&D efficiency by over 30%, serving as the core foundation for AI industrialization in gaming. Cai Haoyu once stated bluntly that in the future, only top geniuses and AI will be able to make games. He believes that logically, only two types of people will meaningfully create games: the top 0.0001%—elite teams composed of the most insightful geniuses creating unprecedented things—and AI. The deeper logic behind this is that talent is the most critical factor in the current AI arms race. Zooming out to the thriving global tech environment, whoever can secure top talent will go further in the technological competition. As Zhang Nan said upon resigning as ByteDance's CEO, aiming to "grow together with this AI era and jointly paint the fantastical world in our minds." This is also the vast frontier for our generation.