How to get money from venture capital institutions today

The recent Central Economic Work Conference proposed to encourage the development of venture capital and equity investment.
○  There are many high-quality projects that cannot get venture capital. The projects that still receive venture capital investment must have their outstanding features.
○  Let’s see what makes these companies so great?

01Changing investment logic

○  Just recently, Xianwei Vision Technology (Nanjing) Co., Ltd., founded in 2022, received more than 100 million yuan in venture capital investment. Cao Feng, the company’s founder, chairman and general manager, is as busy as usual every day. Now that there is money in the account, he said that the guidance of living a tight life must still be conveyed from top to bottom, and the whole company must always have the entrepreneurial spirit of hard work.
○  An excellent company and a company that gets money from venture capital are two different types of companies. During the active period of venture capital, many PPT investment jokes and storytelling roadshow routines were widely popular.
○  When the tide recedes, the waves wash away the sand. On the one hand, this is an unprecedented challenge for a group of entrepreneurs who are far from establishing a firm foothold; on the other hand, the current economic environment can also produce real gold.
○  Senwei Vision was favored by venture capital because it not only aimed at the world’s cutting-edge research and development of advanced products, but also planned to enter the overseas market from the beginning. 

In the year when Senwei Vision was established, the “All-femtosecond Laser Corneal Refractive Surgery Device R&D Project” led by it was selected into the 2022 National Key R&D Plan.

Laser corneal refractive surgery was introduced in China in 1993. 20 years later, Zeiss, the world’s leading technology group in the optical and optoelectronic industries, launched the world’s first all-femtosecond surgery equipment. To date, its product VisuMax is still the only equipment in the world that can perform all-femtosecond surgery. The Chinese market has contributed more than half of the market value of all-femtosecond surgery to Zeiss.
○  The chief scientist of SinVision is Professor Zeng Shaoqun of Wuhan Optoelectronics National Research Center, who has been deeply engaged in femtosecond laser microscopy for nearly 30 years. In 2014, the second year after the launch of the world’s first all-femtosecond surgical device, Professor Zeng Shaoqun started research on all-femtosecond surgical devices.
○  There are about 600 million myopic people in China, and the penetration rate of all-femtosecond surgery is less than 0.3%. Referring to the growth rate of similar surgeries in the United States, assuming that the domestic penetration rate only increases by 0.02% each year, it is estimated that the domestic all-femtosecond market size will be close to 55 billion yuan in 2025, and the startup fees and consumables fees paid to Zeiss in just one year will be around 10 billion yuan.
○  The price of a femtosecond laser surgery device is over 10 million yuan, and each operation requires a patent royalty to be paid to Zeiss. It is disclosed that the cost of a femtosecond laser machine for a pair of eyes is about 8,000 yuan, and the number of myopia surgeries in China is close to 1 million per year.
○  With a clear market prospect, Xianwei Vision has attracted the attention of venture capital institutions. This year alone, more than 50 venture capital institutions have come to negotiate.
○  Xianwei Vision has chosen a different approach from the one that prioritizes fundraising and increasing market value.
○  According to investors’ logic, the first problem that medical entrepreneurs need to solve is to obtain a type inspection report, and then conduct animal and human experiments. At different stages, they initiate corresponding financing and gradually increase the market value.
○ Xianwei Vision aimed at the ultimate use of the product from the very beginning, invited the medical team to participate in the research and development, and promoted research and development based on real pain points. Although the early research and development cycle was long, the product maturity was relatively higher when the company obtained national approval.
○  The large volume of all-femtosecond surgeries, high technical barriers, and strong consumer attributes make Xianwei Vision full of confidence in the future. When anxiety is prevalent on social platforms and self-media, Cao Feng reminds the team to focus on the development of the company for 5, 8 or even longer years, and not to have a speculative mindset of gambling on the trend.
Fortunately  , this choice of Xianwei Vision was favored by a number of investment institutions. A well-known venture capital firm said to Cao Feng: “Even if our cooperation fails, we will still support you. We hope that Chinese companies will be the first to make breakthroughs in the field of all-femtosecond laser scanning.”
○  Xianwei Vision has obtained more than 10 patents, and the patents are still being applied for, basically realizing the localization of the core technology and key components of all-femtosecond laser corneal refractive surgery equipment. In the last month of 2024, Xianwei Vision, which has obtained financing, is fully promoting the production of 7 devices, and the first batch of products will be put into use in 6 well-known ophthalmology hospitals in China before the Spring Festival next year.

02Original innovation that moves forward with difficulty○  Compared with entrepreneurs with a clear market, entrepreneurs who develop new technologies and open up new market paths face greater challenges and risks.
○  In November this year, the city of Düsseldorf, Germany, held the MEDICA medical exhibition as usual. This is a world-renowned medical equipment exhibition. The exhibition attracted 5,800 companies from 70 countries and 8,000 to 9,000 visitors. The MEDICA exhibition and the city of Düsseldorf jointly held the MedX@Düsseldorf competition. Nanjing Norin Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Norin Biotechnology”) was one of the five winning companies in the global innovation enterprise exhibition area, and it was also the only Chinese company to win the award.
○  This is the first time that Norin Biotech has officially appeared as an exhibitor at MEDICA, showing its unique nitric oxide gas treatment and detection product ecosystem to global peers. Nitric oxide is widely present in the human body and participates in a variety of physiological processes. In recent years, the role of this gas in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension and respiratory failure has been highly recognized by clinical experts at home and abroad.
○  Noling Biotech pioneered the nitric oxide therapy device using a new technical path. With 1/50 of the volume of a traditional cylinder, it can stably provide a gas capacity that is 5 times the volume of a cylinder. It is more efficient, smaller, and cheaper than its international counterparts. In April 2022, Noling Biotech’s INOwill N200 obtained the Class III medical device registration certificate from the National Medical Products Administration, becoming the first portable nitric oxide inhalation therapy device in China, filling a gap in the domestic clinical market.