2016.12.14 Zhang Wei Views:
The 16th China PE Investment Annual Forum, co-hosted by Zero2IPO Group and PE Daily, opened in Beijing from December 6th to 8th in 2016. Over 3000 professionals participated in this Forum. The Forum was ended by the highly expected “Zero2IPO 2016 China PE Investment Annual Lists”: CoStone ranked the 8th on the 2016 Zero2IPO Top 100 China PEVC Institutional Investors; Zhang Wei, the CEO of CoStone was among the “2016 Top 10 Chinese PEVC Investors”.
The 16th China PE Investment Annual Forum, co-hosted by Zero2IPO Group and PE Daily, opened in Beijing from December 6th to 8th in 2016. Over 3000 professionals participated in this Forum. The Forum was ended by the highly expected “Zero2IPO 2016 China PE Investment Annual Lists”: CoStone ranked the 8th on the 2016 Zero2IPO Top 100 China PEVC Institutional Investors; Zhang Wei, the CEO of CoStone was among the “2016 Top 10 Chinese PEVC Investors”.
On December 7th, Zhang Wei delivered a keynote speech under the title of “No Pessimistic on the Journey of Investment”.
“We never resort to the macro-economic prediction. If economists can’t see through it, how could we? Besides, 7% or 1% GDP growth makes no difference in our investment. As to which fields to invest in, every investor knows healthcare, TMT, and consumption services. So, what we should focus on is not an industry but companies. They are not just statistics, they are real. That’s the core question,” said Zhang.
“CoStone never expects to predict the macro-economy, never tries to adapt a founding team. We don’t rely on changing portfolio companies’ business models and the so-called ‘tailwind’ to make money. We are dedicated to a sophisticated layout in fields that we are familiar with. Companies are like runners in a race. By analyzing their organization models and entrepreneurship, we know who will be the winner,” as Zhang said.
Rewritten by Chen Cong, Edited by Li Yunzhen, Du Zhixin
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