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According to an exclusive report from Late Auto, the chip subsidiary of Li Auto is advancing its first round of external financing, with a pre-investment valuation of approximately 15 billion yuan, planning to raise several billion yuan. Business registration information shows that Mach Intelligent Cores Limited was established in Hong Kong on July 14, and on August 4, it fully established Shanghai Mach Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., with Li Auto's CTO Xie Yan serving as the legal representative; a few days later, it also fully established Shanghai Mach Heart Technology Co., Ltd., with the legal representative being Li Auto's co-secretary Wang Yang.Li Auto's self-developed chip team consists of about 200 people, mainly engaged in AI computing architecture, chip design, and related software development, while advancing two types of self-developed chip projects for vehicles and the cloud. Its first self-developed chip, Mach M100, has entered mass production and is equipped in several new or updated models launched this year; another cloud inference chip is under development, also using a data flow architecture. In the first half of this year, financing in the domestic semiconductor sector amounted to approximately 162.7 billion yuan, with AI computing being one of the key areas for funding. For reference, NIO's chip subsidiary Anhui Shenji completed its first round of financing of 2.257 billion yuan in February this year, with a post-investment valuation of nearly 10 billion yuan.

The general AI computing power chip unicorn EVAS Intelligence announced the completion of a new round of financing, amounting to nearly 2 billion yuan, with a post-investment valuation estimated to be close to 15 billion yuan.This round of financing brought together over 20 investment institutions, including Huatai Innovation, Zhongding Capital, SMIC Juyuan, Jiuan Medical, Renai Capital, Tongfu Microelectronics, Saiyi Industrial Fund, Heli Capital, Xinxin Leasing, Hengxu Capital, Shangqi Capital, Jiangguang Zhanlu, and Rongyi Capital. EVAS Intelligence mainly provides efficient and scalable AI computing acceleration solutions, promoting the widespread application of AI technology across various industries.

Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV) robotics subsidiary has signed a share purchase agreement with investors, aiming to raise over $900 million, with a post-investment valuation exceeding $6.3 billion. Xpeng stated that this is the largest single financing completed by a Chinese company in the robotics field to date. The financing round was led by IDG Capital, with strategic follow-on investments from Tencent and Alibaba, and participation from Gao Rong Capital and others.In terms of financing structure, external investors contributed approximately $600 million, Xpeng's subsidiary contributed about $200 million, and CEO He Xiaopeng along with co-president Gu Hongdi's related entities contributed around $100 million. Xpeng will retain about 82% of the controlling stake and consolidate this business. The funds will be used for the research and development of the flagship humanoid robot IRON, the construction of embodied intelligence and data capabilities, as well as mass production and business expansion aimed for the end of 2026. IRON is equipped with Xpeng's self-developed robotics and AI-specific chips.This subsidiary is part of Xpeng's robotics platform Dogotix (Xpeng robotic dog/humanoid robot related entities). Alibaba and Tencent had previously participated as Pre-IPO investors in the financing of the Chinese humanoid robotics company Yushu Technology.

According to a report by a financial magazine, multiple trading insiders revealed that the large model company DeepSeek has restarted its second round of financing, planning to raise 50 billion yuan, with a pre-investment valuation of approximately 500 billion yuan, and plans to complete the signing by late August.Several investors mentioned that DeepSeek's second round of financing had at least started in mid-July, but was suddenly paused at the end of July. At that time, some investors on the negotiation standby list were informed that the plan to sign the financing agreement was postponed. According to media reports on July 26, DeepSeek paused its second round of financing, one reason being that DeepSeek's founder Liang Wenfeng was dissatisfied with widely circulated comments online, which mainly revolved around the suspected leak of the "transcript of the investor meeting."DeepSeek and the investors at the negotiation table hope that this financing can proceed discreetly after the restart. Currently, some investment institutions that had previously been actively in contact have stated that they have not received news of DeepSeek restarting the financing, and the channel remains in a paused state.

ChainCatcher news, according to newsfilecorp, Canadian publicly listed company Tony G Co-Investment Holdings Ltd. announced that as part of its long-term digital asset strategy, the company has completed the acquisition of the Hyperliquid ecosystem native asset HYPE tokens, purchasing a total of 10,387.685 HYPE tokens at an average purchase price of $42.24 per token, for a total transaction amount of $438,828.46.

ChainCatcher news, Du Jun, co-founder of ABCDE, stated on social media that ABCDE has officially ceased new project investments and suspended the fundraising plan for the second phase of its fund. The original team will continue to be responsible for post-investment support and exit arrangements for existing projects, ensuring that commitments to entrepreneurs and LPs are fulfilled seriously.His personal work focus will also gradually shift from financial investments in the primary market to a strategy-led approach combined with deep incubation, with a greater emphasis on industrial synergy and long-term value creation.Du Jun added that he has launched a new incubator brand, Vernal, and will announce the incubator shareholders and incubation rules, as well as the first batch of incubated projects in May. In May, he will also release the first buying list, detailing how much was bought and the reasons for the purchases.

ChainCatcher news, the decentralized stablecoin protocol Frax Finance community has initiated a new proposal, suggesting to authorize an initial investment of 5 million dollars in the Trump family's crypto project World Liberty Financial (WLFI), positioning FRAX as part of the WLFI ecosystem, with subsequent investments of up to 10 million dollars, depending on the success of the collaboration.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Information, the artificial intelligence company OpenAI is in talks with institutions such as the UAE investment fund MGX to plan a large-scale financing round of up to $7 billion. After this round of financing, OpenAI's valuation could reach $150 billion. In addition to MGX, existing investors like Microsoft and Thrive Capital are also expected to participate.Due to the potential connections between Middle Eastern investors and China and Russia, this financing may face scrutiny from U.S. regulators. OpenAI is currently growing rapidly but is also consuming a large amount of capital, and this financing will be used to support its ongoing development and employee stock buybacks.

According to ChainCatcher news, Animoca Brands announced a strengthened partnership with Web3 venture capital firm Everest Ventures Group through cross-investment. As part of the collaboration, Animoca Brands will support various consumer products launched by EVG in 2024, aimed at making it easier for all users to access Web3 experiences. These products include: OpenSocial Protocol, a scalable and composable social application infrastructure layer; Zeek, a decentralized collaboration network for on-chain social bounties and reputation, among others.

ChainCatcher news, according to Reuters, Musk's AI company xAI has reached a valuation of $24 billion after its latest round of financing.ChainCatcher previously reported that, according to the official announcement, Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI has completed a $6 billion Series B financing round, with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, and Kingdom Holding.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, Musk stated: xAI's pre-investment valuation is 16 billion dollars. However, he later replied on Twitter that the pre-investment valuation is 18 billion dollars.

ChainCatcher news, Bitcoin Layer2 project BEVM announced that it has completed its seed round and part of its Series A funding, with an investment amount reaching tens of millions of dollars. The participating investors include nearly 20 institutions such as RockTree Capital, Waterdrip Capital, Arkstream Capital, ViaBTC Capital, Satoshi Lab, Web3port, Cogitent Ventures, MH Ventures, Mapleblock, Electrum Capital, Zephyrus Capital, Lotus Capital, 7UPDAO, TimeTells, and others, with a post-investment valuation of 200 million dollars.The funds raised will be used to develop the Bitcoin ecosystem based on the Taproot consensus. BEVM will launch "BEVM-Stack" (BTClayer2 as a service), helping developers to launch BTClayer2 with one click. In addition, BEVM will also develop the DBFX (decentralized Bitcoin foreign exchange) protocol, seamlessly integrating native BTC into any DeFi protocol on any chain.

ChainCatcher news, Zeepr Labs announced the completion of a cornerstone round of financing led by investment institutions such as the Celestia ecosystem incubator Cincubator, with a post-investment valuation of $150 million.It is reported that Zeepr is the world's first decentralized perpetual contract protocol that supports both coin-based and U-based trading. Zeepr rewards successful trading users with amplified profits, providing a slippage-free and no funding fee on-chain perpetual contract trading experience. Zeepr will collaborate deeply with Celestia to co-build the on-chain ecosystem. Zeepr's partners include leading public chains and popular projects such as EOS, IOST, Rats, Mice, Suiswap, and Bee Network.

ChainCatcher news, the crypto venture capital firm Blockchain Capital has launched a new program called BCAP Build, aimed at focusing on providing post-investment support for founders while rebranding its website to showcase its portfolio company network. It is reported that the program will support talent management, market strategy, and partnership networks for its portfolio companies.In addition, Blockchain Capital's general partner Kinjal Shah stated that the new project will be dedicated to helping founders with token design for their projects.It is reported that Blockchain Capital was founded in 2013 and currently manages $1.9 billion in assets. (Source link)

ChainCatcher message, Cinneamhain Ventures partner Adam Cochran tweeted, "I don't know the news about Jump Crypto, but I just realized today must be a bad day for them as they have over-invested in the Solana ecosystem and co-invested in FTX. Currently, the status of several related on-chain addresses I can find is still stable." (source link)