The venture capital group's cooperative sub-fund invested in the company Dongfang Space, completing nearly 600 million yuan in Series B financing.

Recently, the Nanjing Innovation Investment Group's cooperative sub-fund—Nanjing Turing Phase I Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership) (hereinafter referred to as "Turing Phase I Fund") announced that it has completed nearly 600 million yuan in Series B financing for the company Dongfang Space (Shandong) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Dongfang Space"). This round of financing was led by new institutions including Liangxi Science and Technology Innovation Industry Mother Fund (Bohua Capital Management), Shenwan Hongyuan Investment, Hongtai Fund, and Xinding Capital, while existing shareholders such as Shanxing Capital, Minyin International, and Dinghe Gaoda continued to support. Taihe Capital served as the financial advisor, and the funds raised will be used for the research and production of the "Yuanli-85" hundred-ton liquid oxygen kerosene engine, accelerating the development of the "Gravity No. 2" medium and large reusable liquid launch vehicle. In April 2021, the Turing Phase I Fund participated in the angel round financing of Dongfang Space, investing 10 million yuan. The Turing Phase I Fund was established in March 2019, with a fund size of 268 million yuan, and the Nanjing Innovation Investment Group managed the Nanjing municipal-level science and technology innovation fund, investing 60 million yuan in this sub-fund. The Turing Phase I Fund was initiated by Turing Venture Capital, which focuses on early-stage equity investment in artificial intelligence and information technology-related fields. Turing Venture Capital relies on the first-class technical capabilities, talent reserves, government, and industry resources of Tsinghua University's Institute of Interdisciplinary Information Research and Nanjing Turing Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, and is committed to helping scientific research results land and transform through investment to incubate a new generation of information technology startups, promoting the rapid application of artificial intelligence and information technology in traditional fields.

Dongfang Space was established in 2020 and is a design and manufacturing service company for launch vehicles and new aerospace transport tools. On January 11 of this year, Dongfang Space's first rocket "Gravity No. 1" successfully completed its maiden flight, with a near-Earth orbit carrying capacity of 6.5 tons, setting multiple records including the world's largest solid launch vehicle, China's largest civil and commercial launch vehicle, China's first bundled civil and commercial launch vehicle, and the world's first bundled launch vehicle for sea launch, further expanding China's commercial launch capabilities. It provides solutions for the maritime mobile launch and rapid emergency launch of medium-sized launch vehicles in China, while reducing launch costs to a leading level in domestic commercial aerospace. According to the plan, Dongfang Space aims to achieve the maiden flight of "Gravity No. 2" in about two years. It is reported that "Gravity No. 2" has key features such as reusability, extreme cost-effectiveness, and high-orbit launch, which will further increase the carrying capacity to 15-20 tons and reduce launch costs to the level of SpaceX's "Falcon 9", meeting the needs for large satellite internet constellation networking and medium to high orbit launches. "Gravity No. 2" will use the self-developed "Yuanli-85" engine, which completed half-system thermal testing in December 2023 and will complete full-system testing in the first quarter of this year, with the goal of the "Gravity No. 2" rocket making its maiden flight by the end of 2025.

Source: Fund Department Wang Yanan

Reviewed by: Xue Yao

Published by: You Yi