2019.05.06 CoStone Capital Views:
May 6th 2019, the Review Board for Mergers, Acquisitions and Restructurings of Listed Companies of China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has granted the conditional approval for WillSemi’s application for acquiring OmniVision Co., Ltd.
May 6th 2019, the Review Board for Mergers, Acquisitions and Restructurings of Listed Companies of China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has granted the conditional approval for WillSemi’s application for acquiring OmniVision Co., Ltd.
CoStone Capital has been focusing its investment and take big positions in the field of integrated circuit (IC), and OmniVision is one of its representative projects. Chips manufactured by OmniVision are widely applied in iPhones and tablet PC cameras.
About OmniVision
The company is dedicated to design, develop and sell CMOS image sensors (CIS) and relevant accessories. OmniVision, SONY and Samsung are currently the three global leading suppliers of image sensors, the company has a high market acceptance and a promising potential. 
Product of OmniVision: the world’s smallest medical sensor.
Bright future of the Acquisition
The acquisition has previously been reviewed and approved by CFIUS on April 16th, now with CSRC’s conditional approval, the deal looks very promising.
The synergy between WillSemi and OmniVision has created favorable conditions for the future operation, which mainly embodies in the following respects:
Business Collaboration: The clients of the two companies are mainly from the field of mobile telecommunication, tablet PC, security precaution, automobile electronics, the similar termial client base allows further business collaboration.
Sales&industrial chain: With the advantage of WillSemi’s distribution channel, OmniVision can acquire market information more comprehensively and develop more targeted product , providing customers with better solutions and professional guidance.
Technology R&D: The R&D and sales of CMOS image sensors will be incorporated into WillSemi’s business, by doing so, WillSemi’s designing of semiconductor will improve rather quickly. In addition, this will also bring quality customers in new fields to the company.
The outlook of the acquisition is very promising: According to WillSemi’s announcement, the expected real revenue of OmniVision from 2019 to 2021 is ¥700 million，¥1 billion and ¥1.3 billion respectively.
Rewritten by Xue Guanda, Edited by Du Zhixin, Li Yunzhen
Over the past year, the bull market returned, with technology leading the way.
As I said back in October 2024, the rally that began on September 24 was not merely a rebound, but a reversal. Since then, China's capital markets have undergone a broad revaluation, moving from undervaluation toward fair value.
The Shanghai Composite Index reached its highest level in a decade. The "Yi-Zhong-Tian" trio—Eoptolink, Zhongji Innolight and TFC Communication, three prominent Chinese optical communications stocks—saw their share prices multiply severalfold in a single year. Cambricon's market capitalization briefly exceeded RMB 600 billion. Elsewhere in the technology sector, triple-digit price-to-earnings ratios and valuations exceeding RMB 10 billion became commonplace.
Some investors were greedy; others, fearful. Still others asked me: Are technology stocks in a valuation bubble?
My answer is that what we are witnessing is the hunger and anxiety of an era, reflected in the capital markets. Once you understand this, the current fervor for technology investing is no longer difficult to explain.
Investment has nothing to do with macroeconomics, but everything to do with geopolitics.
China-US relations will shape the investment landscape for decades to come. Geopolitics has played a major role in shaping the hunger and anxiety of our times, fundamentally reshaping the way we invest.
What, then, lies at the heart of China's hunger and anxiety?
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is already underway, yet China has not fully overcome the technological shortcomings left by the Third. There is no time to lose.
This is why some people wonder: Why do Chinese computing chip companies command such high valuations when their technologies still lag so far behind NVIDIA's? Why does NVIDIA trade at just 50 times earnings, while a company hailed as "China's answer to NVIDIA" commands a multiple of 300?
To me, this gets the logic exactly backward.
It is precisely because these companies cannot catch up with NVIDIA in the near term that they command a higher strategic premium. The wider the technological gap, the greater the strategic value.
The further something lies beyond our reach, the stronger our hunger. The harder it is to catch up, the deeper our anxiety. If China were to achieve a complete breakthrough in computing chips one day, valuations might actually come down.
Where can one find China's most spectacular natural landscapes?
Much of the answer, I believe, lies in and around the Hengduan Mountains: the Meili Snow Mountains, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Mount Gongga, Mount Siguniang, Jiuzhaigou, and many others. Vast differences in elevation and deep fault lines have given rise to landscapes of extraordinary grandeur.
Hard-tech investing follows a similar logic.
Technological gaps, discontinuities in capabilities, and missing links in industrial systems: a leap in difficulty brings a leap in valuation, and a successful breakthrough can, in turn, bring a leap in returns.
This logic extends well beyond computing chips. It is equally evident in memory semiconductors, commercial spaceflight, and other sectors where China still faces substantial technological gaps with other countries.
It was precisely this conviction that led CoStone Capital, starting in 2016, to decisively focus its investments on three areas: hard tech, emerging industries, and life sciences and healthcare. In this context, "hard tech" refers specifically to important industries in which China faces a technological gap with the United States.
Thanks to this forward-looking strategy, CoStone Capital established an early presence across the full value chains of key sectors, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
Looking ahead, the frontiers of technological progress and industrial upgrading are boundless. Nor can the gaps in hard technology be closed overnight. The twin windows of opportunity presented by technological innovation and the development of homegrown alternatives to foreign technologies have only just begun to open.
The road ahead is long, but the future holds immense promise.
As an investment firm, CoStone Capital will continue to invest where the hunger and anxiety of each era run deepest, move forward with the tensions that shape our times, and extend our reach toward the most challenging—and most important—frontiers.
Spring 2026