The 'Star Market Daily' news on November 1st (Reporter Li Mingming) the large model unicorn Zhigu has new dynamics.

Recently, Fund Z (Zhigu Ecological Fund) officially announced the completion of its first closing. The fund is led by Zhigu, and jointly established with partners in the ecosystem such as Shijingshan Modern Innovation Industry Development Fund, Aofei Data, Yanbei Capital, and Fuzhuo Investment.

Regarding the establishment of Fund Z, Zhigu told the 'Star Market Daily' reporter, 'Since the establishment of the company in 2019, the road to AGI requires more partners to build together. We participated in initiating Fund Z as a cornerstone LP, supported by shareholders and LPs. We also hope to help more excellent entrepreneurial companies in the direction of AI large models, prosper the AI large model ecosystem, accelerate the arrival of AGI, and continue to invest in more good projects to strengthen cooperation with Zhigu's global strategy.'

Fund Z completes its first closing of 1.5 billion yuan.

It is introduced that Fund Z mainly covers the large model track, focuses on early-stage investment, with a management scale of 1.5 billion yuan. It focuses on the technological and application innovation of the upstream and downstream of the large model track. With Zhigu's leading position in the large model industry chain, the Fund Z team can more accurately understand industry chain demands, grasp technological boundaries, capture technological trends, and invest in the best entrepreneurs in the large model track at an earlier stage.

One of the ecosystem partners, the Shijingshan Modern Innovation Industry Development Fund, was established in 2017, with Mao Dun as the legal representative, controlled by Beijing Shijingshan District State-owned Capital Investment Co., Ltd. According to QCC, the fund has invested externally in 9 projects, including Beijing Jinshishu Economic Equity Fund Enterprise (Limited Partnership), Beijing Shoushi Science Fiction Industry Equity Investment Fund (Limited Partnership), and Beijing Saifu Haohai Industrial Internet Investment Center (Limited Partnership).

Shijingshan Modern Innovation Industry Development Fund stated that Shijingshan District is vigorously developing the AI industry and has started the construction of a total of 20,000P Smart Computing Center, which will be lit up by the Spring Festival with 3,000P. In the future, based on this, it will vigorously promote the construction and development of the AI ecosystem. 'Zhigu is a leading enterprise in large models. Shijingshan and Zhigu jointly initiated Fund Z, which will promote the large-scale implementation of large model technology and drive the development of the industrial ecosystem.'

Another ecological partner, Guangdong Aofei Data Technology, is a domestic internet cloud computing and big data infrastructure service provider. Regarding the cooperation with Chiphome, it stated, "While focusing on digital new infrastructure construction, it also hopes to cooperate with professional investment institutions such as Z Fund to broaden and strengthen connections and cooperation with excellent enterprises upstream and downstream, jointly promote the sustainable development of the artificial intelligence industry."

According to Tianyancha, Aofei Data Technology has invested in 7 projects externally, including Yuanqi Semiconductor, Chaoran Semiconductor, Gu'an Julong, and others.

Yanbei Capital was established in 2013 and has now developed into a diversified group company with core businesses covering trade logistics, hotel tourism, industrial investment, and asset operation, radiating the Jing-Jin-Ji and Chengdu-Chongqing regions. It stated that cooperation with Z Fund is an important manifestation of the company's strategy. In the future, it will focus on independent innovation and investment opportunities in fields such as artificial intelligence and biomedical engineering, promoting localization substitution, and building the group's second growth curve and strategic new base.

As for why Chiphome chose the above ecological partners to cooperate in establishing Z Fund, insiders told the "Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily" that these ecological partners have synergies with Chiphome and the big model industry, actively providing financial support, hence the collaboration.

Surrounding the layout of the upstream and downstream industrial chain of the big model.

Regarding the developments of Z Fund, it can be traced back to August 4th this year. On the Chiphome Z Plan Enterprise Roadshow Day, Chiphome CEO Zhang Peng announced the formal launch of the AGI Ecological Fund Z Fund in collaboration with ecological partners to support more early-stage projects with potential in the big model track.

Beyond equity investment, Chiphome is also making friends with various parties related to the big model industry in various forms.

One of them is the Z Plan, which is an innovative acceleration program by Chiphome aimed at unlisted startups (principally established within five years), as well as outstanding independent developers/teams, providing investment support and necessary AI big model starting resources and technical services.

Zhipu Fang revealed to the reporter of the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily that, compared to Z Fund, the Z Plan is a "larger circle," with projects related to equity investment using the Z Fund layout.

Zhipu is going further on the road of investors. Shortly after its establishment, it targeted investment layout in the upstream and downstream of the large model. For example, as early as December 2022, Zhipu participated in the angel round financing of Lingshen Intelligent in the mental health field; in September of the next year, Lingshen Intelligent was acquired wholly by Zhipu.

Subsequently, with the surge of general large models, Zhipu's financing pace has accelerated, and at the same time, its external actions have become more active. According to QCC, Zhipu has publicly taken action 30 times. As of October this year, Zhipu's external equity investment representative Z Fund has laid out dozens of companies including Jiliu Technology, Wuwen Xinqiong, Muyan Zhiyu, Caizhi Technology, and Dongyi Technology, covering the entire industry chain from basic infrastructure, industry solutions to innovative applications.

The reporter of the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily noticed that among the companies invested by Zhipu, at least 11 companies are related to Tsinghua background. However, Zhipu's side stated that there is no specific inclination towards Tsinghua, "but Tsinghua's hard technology startups are relatively excellent, we cannot ignore that."

Regarding the company's investment strategy, Zhang Peng once publicly stated his hope to build a large model ecosystem, where we work hand in hand with partners to make the ecosystem bigger and this is Zhipu's longer-term commercial goal. In addition, making the large model truly land and down-to-earth is an important task for the company.

Another insider told the reporter of the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily that one of the core reasons why Zhipu invests in the upstream and downstream industrial chain of large models may be to land application scenarios, "because there is still a certain distance between large models and enterprise applications, and it is unrealistic for Zhipu alone to do all the related applications, so a group of industry chain partners need to collaborate. The most direct effect of this ecological construction on industrial investors is to enable downstream application projects to become their customers through this strategic investment, thus achieving growth in orders and revenue. This is an alternative way for projects with large financing but still insufficient self-blood-making capacity to explore commercial realization."