HongShan — China's Sequoia, led by Neil Shen — spans every Chinese frontier model lab, the full embodied-intelligence stack, autonomous driving and vision AI. Its heaviest bet is MiniMax, and its seed fund entered Unitree Robotics at Pre-A. It also began assembling a brain-computer interface portfolio as early as 2020.
HongShan holds positions in Moonshot AI, MiniMax, Zhipu AI, Light Years Beyond and StepFun — effectively the full field of Chinese foundation-model contenders. Its heaviest single bet is MiniMax, where it led a US$50M A+ round and kept adding, ending pre-IPO as the third largest financial shareholder at 3.81%.
The firm's seed vehicle entered Unitree Robotics at Pre-A in December 2019 with RMB 15M at a RMB 150M post-money valuation, then followed nearly every round to a 7.11% stake worth over RMB 2.5B on paper — the seed fund's first investment and the template for how HongShan compounds early conviction.
Rather than picking one robot winner, HongShan funded each layer of the stack: the brain (AgiBot), perception (Mech-Mind), hands (LinkerBot), feet (Lingzu Tech), force-controlled arms (Agile Robots), warehouse and consumer robots (Hai Robotics, Narwal, AgileX) and rehabilitation robotics (Fourier).
From 2020 the firm systematically backed Neuracle, NeuroXess, Zhiran Medical and SceneRay, entering a category most institutional investors only discovered around 2025 and holding it with unusually long patience.
HongShan is the China business formerly known as Sequoia Capital China. Sequoia announced a three-way split of its global partnership in June 2023 and completed it in March 2024, since when HongShan has been a legally and financially separate partnership from Sequoia Capital in the US and Peak XV Partners in India and Southeast Asia.
Disclosed HongShan AI investments across foundation models, agents and applications, embodied intelligence, autonomous driving and vision, and brain-computer interfaces.
Maker of Kimi. HongShan has backed every round since the angel financing.
Led a US$50M A+ round, then repeated follow-ons; third largest financial shareholder at 3.81% before listing.
One of the early institutional investors in the GLM model family.
Large-model startup founded by Wang Huiwen and later acquired by Meituan; HongShan was an investor.
One of China's multimodal model leaders; HongShan is an investor.
Co-led the Series A; Manus went viral in March 2025 with two million users queuing within a week.
HongShan holds 2.41% and is the sixth largest shareholder ahead of the company's IPO attempt.
Seed fund entered at Pre-A in December 2019 (RMB 15M at RMB 150M post-money) and added across rounds to a 7.11% stake, over RMB 2.5B on paper.
The 'brain' position in HongShan's embodied intelligence map.
The 'perception' position — AI-powered industrial 3D vision.
The 'hands' position — dexterous robotic hands.
The 'feet' position — leg and foot actuators for humanoid robots.
Case-handling mobile robots for automated warehouses.
Force-sensing intelligent robot arms.
Listed company spanning personal mobility and robotic lawn mowers.
Rehabilitation and general-purpose humanoid robotics.
Premium robot floor cleaners.
Robotic arms and mobile chassis used widely in embodied AI research.
HongShan led the company's first financing and invested in four consecutive rounds.
Listed autonomous-driving compute platform.
Listed computer vision and multimodal AI group.
Entered at Series A in 2015 and added across multiple later rounds.
Backed from 2020, led internally by partner Yunxia Yang.
Early investor in this flexible high-bandwidth BCI company.
Early-stage BCI investment.
Early-stage investment in implantable neuromodulation and BCI devices.
A selected, non-exhaustive sample of the firm's wider internet and consumer track record.
Early backer of the TikTok and Douyin parent.
Long-held position in China's largest local commerce platform.
Early investor in the PDD Holdings marketplace.
Early institutional investor.
Investor in the global drone leader.
No rounds led by HongShan are in the tracker yet. Deals will appear here as they are recorded.
No — and has not been since March 2024. Sequoia announced the three-way split of its global partnership in June 2023 and completed it in March 2024: HongShan (the former Sequoia Capital China, led by Neil Shen), Sequoia Capital in the US and Europe, and Peak XV in India and Southeast Asia are legally and financially separate partnerships. Every position on this page is HongShan's alone.
Because Unitree is the template for how HongShan compounds early conviction: the seed vehicle's first investment, in December 2019, was RMB 15M at a RMB 150M post-money valuation — and it followed nearly every round to a 7.11% stake worth over RMB 2.5B on paper, implying a company value near RMB 35B, over 200 times its entry post-money. Adding on proof, not on price, is the pattern.
Field coverage hedges model-layer uncertainty: Moonshot, MiniMax, Zhipu, Light Years Beyond and StepFun amount to the full set of Chinese frontier contenders. Within the field it still concentrates — MiniMax is the heaviest bet, led at the US$50M A+ round and followed through to 3.81%, the third-largest financial shareholder before listing. So: all of the above, then double down on the one that breaks out.
Like a bill of materials: AgiBot as the brain, Mech-Mind for 3D perception, LinkerBot's dexterous hands, Lingzu's foot actuators, Agile Robots' force-controlled arms, plus warehouse and consumer bodies (Hai Robotics, Narwal, AgileX) and rehabilitation (Fourier). Rather than picking one robot winner, HongShan funded each layer of the stack — the same decomposition MiraclePlus backs at pre-seed prices, at growth scale.
Roughly five years before the institutional crowd, which only discovered the category around 2025. From 2020 it systematically backed Neuracle, NeuroXess, Zhiran Medical and SceneRay — implantable BCI, flexible high-bandwidth electrodes and neuromodulation — with partner Yunxia Yang leading Neuracle internally. An internally-led cluster signals a house thesis rather than opportunism, and the hold so far is unusually patient for venture pacing.
It exited by acquisition: Wang Huiwen's large-model startup was bought by Meituan — and Meituan itself is one of HongShan's long-held portfolio companies, so the acquirer was already inside the fund's book. It is an early case of a Chinese LLM position resolving through strategic consolidation rather than a public listing, years before the 2025–26 wave of model-lab mega-financings.