The global primary market evolved amidst profound transformations in 2025. On one hand, the disruptive technological wave led by artificial intelligence swept across the globe, driving capital concentration towards a select few leading projects. On the other hand, geopolitical shifts reshaped capital flows and security boundaries, giving rise to emerging investment themes such as defense technology, aerospace, and quantum computing.
Data from the Asset Management Association of China shows that from January 1 to December 31, 2025, 112 new private equity and venture capital fund managers were registered, roughly flat year-on-year, while 662 fund managers were deregistered, a decrease of 28.7%. A total of 1,696 new private equity funds were filed, a year-on-year increase of 12.2%, with the growth concentrated mainly in the second quarter and after August. Additionally, 3,208 new venture capital funds were filed, a 22.4% increase year-on-year, maintaining positive growth consistently since March.
During the statistical period, 12 domestic funds raised over 3 billion yuan each, with a total fundraising amount of 55.806 billion yuan. Eight institutions raised funds more than twice during the year, namely CBC Group, Vision Knight Capital, CICC Capital, Cathay Capital, GLP, Yuanhe Puhua, Hony Capital, and Tranquil Lake Ventures.
According to public statistics, a total of 5,599 companies completed 6,343 investment deals in the 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. Eleven investment institutions participated in more than 40 deals each during the period, a 37.5% increase year-on-year. Among CVC institutions, Baidu Ventures (BV) was the most active, participating in 30 investments in 2025, approximately 4.3 times the number in 2024.
Information combined from the Asset Management Association of China, Tianyancha, and official websites indicates that Baidu Ventures is an independent venture capital firm initiated and established by Baidu Group in 2017. It focuses on strategic deployment and exploration in the artificial intelligence field, covering segments such as the AI industry chain, autonomous driving, healthcare, life sciences, robotics, and advanced computing. Between 2017 and 2018, Baidu Ventures successively established three venture funds and one equity investment fund, with a total registered capital contribution of 2.376 billion yuan. By the completion of its third fund raising in September 2021, its assets under management had exceeded $700 million.
Among the four currently registered and filed surviving funds of Baidu Ventures, only Guangzhou Baidu Venture Capital Artificial Intelligence Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) has achieved independent external fundraising. Besides its parent company Baidu, the fund's limited partners (LPs) include Qianrun Fund of Funds and its subsidiary GKA Qianrun Artificial Intelligence Special Fund of Funds, as well as Capitaland Financial Holdings, holding stakes of 38.29%, 9.57%, and 6.38%, respectively. One of the major investors in the GKA Qianrun Artificial Intelligence Special Fund of Funds is Nanyue Fund, a district-level government investment fund in Guangzhou.
Baidu Ventures publicly disclosed 30 equity financing events during the statistical period. Influenced by the trends of 2024, activity was initially subdued, with only 3 and 4 deals completed in the first and second quarters, respectively. However, as the industry warmed up overall in the second half of the year, coupled with intensified enthusiasm for AI, Baidu Ventures significantly increased its investment pace, completing a total of 23 deals in the third and fourth quarters combined—approximately 3.3 times the number in the first half.
In terms of deal size, Baidu Ventures primarily participated in investments of 100 million yuan and below, and those between 100 million and 500 million yuan. Excluding deals with undisclosed amounts, these two size categories accounted for 54.2% and 29.2% of the investment events, respectively. There were 2 major financings exceeding 1 billion yuan. The largest deal involved "Jiushi Intelligent," an L4 autonomous delivery vehicle RoboVan developer, where Baidu Ventures, as an existing shareholder, co-invested with Ant Group and Blue Lake Capital in a Series B round that cumulatively raised $400 million.
Regarding investment stage, early-stage deals were the absolute mainstay for Baidu Ventures, with Seed rounds and Angel rounds each accounting for 30.0% of the total number of investments, and Pre-A rounds comprising 16.7%. Compared to 2024, Baidu Ventures began venturing into growth-stage companies, with participation in Series C and Series D rounds collectively accounting for approximately 6.7% of its deals.
From an industry distribution perspective, approximately 70.0% of the companies receiving investment from Baidu Ventures were AI enterprises. Within the AI sector, intelligent robotics, general AI applications, AIGC, the AI foundation layer, and the AI model layer accounted for 57.1%, 23.8%, 9.5%, 4.8%, and 4.8% of the AI investment events, respectively. The proportion of deals in the enterprise services and automotive/transportation sectors, which were focuses in 2024, was halved.
Geographically, Beijing was the key region for Baidu Ventures's deployment, accounting for approximately 43.3% of its investment events. In 2025, Beijing launched the nation's first local specialized policy for scientific AI, the "Beijing Action Plan for Accelerating High-Quality Development of AI-Enabled Scientific Research (2025-2027)." Several related policies indicated support of up to 30 million yuan for industry-leading large model computing costs, up to 30 million yuan for embodied intelligent factory demonstration projects, and annual allocations of 100 million yuan each for computing vouchers, model vouchers, and data vouchers to support industry development—highly aligned with Baidu Ventures's investment focus.
Based on incomplete statistics from Tianyancha and public information, Baidu Ventures invested in 3 unicorn companies in 2025: besides "Jiushi Intelligent," these included the full-course management service platform "Wei Mai" and the embodied intelligence company "Xing Hai Tu." Among its portfolio companies, 2 were designated as specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative SMEs. Seven companies received 2 rounds of investment from Baidu Ventures within the year, including the intelligent companion robot company "Vita Dynamics," the AI+Chemistry tech innovation company "Deep Principle," the aerial robotics platform "Weifen Zhifei," the multi-modal data collection and governance technology developer "Jian Zhi Robotics," and the general embodied intelligent robotics company "Shen Pu Intelligent (Simple AI)."
Data from IPO ZaoZhiDao shows that Baidu Ventures had 3 portfolio companies conduct IPOs during the statistical period, all listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. According to Wind industry classifications, 2 of the IPO projects were pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The best performer since listing was the generative AI-driven clinical-stage biotech company "Ying Gui Intelligent," whose shares closed at HK$37.14 on December 31, approximately 1.7 times the IPO price.