Two months before winning the championship, a precise investment of 90 million yuan in Zhang Xue’s motorcycle—how Zhejiang Venture Capital managed to back the world champion.

Ask AI · How does Zhejiang Venture Capital identify Zhangxue Motorcycles’ potential amid high risks?

Fast Technology, April 4 — Recently, the domestic motorcycle brand Zhangxue Motorcycles has won back-to-back championships at the WSBK World Superbike Championship for two consecutive days, sparking heated discussion across the internet.

And the fact that Zhangxue Motorcycles has only two investors in its company has also drawn attention from netizens. Among them, the fund under Gao Xin Capital, Shanghai Gao Xin Lingzhi Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership), is the exclusive investor in the angel round, with an investment of 20 million yuan and a stake of about 9.17%.

The other investment company is Zhejiang Venture Capital under Zhejiang Provincial State-owned Capital Operation Co., Ltd. Before Zhangxue Motorcycles won the WSBK championship—more than 1 month earlier—it invested 90 million yuan, accurately betting on Zhangxue Motorcycles winning the world title.

According to CCTV News, Cheng Junhua, General Manager of Zhejiang Provincial Venture Capital Group, recently discussed the story behind venture capital investments in Zhangxue Motorcycles in a media interview.

At first, “Zhejiang Venture Capital” employee Shen Qianyang, a motorcycle enthusiast who had just joined the company, brought a video of Zhangxue chasing a car into General Manager Cheng Junhua’s office.

At that time, Zhangxue Motorcycles had been established for just 1 year and 4 months, and was mired in a loss-making predicament. Founder Zhangxue even had to raise 7 million yuan from everywhere to cover employees’ wages. Such a high-risk company is also a project that many venture capital institutions avoid.

But Zhejiang Venture Capital didn’t dismiss it immediately. Cheng Junhua said frankly that we should take the initiative to approach it. There are two judgments in this process.

First, Zhangxue’s casual, no-nonsense way actually reflects his decisive style. In a highly competitive industry, if not for this style, many things might not be done with such efficiency. Second, the people around him accept and recognize his style, which can directly resonate with many people.

To get to the truth, Zhejiang Venture Capital’s team did not commission a third party. Instead, they directly stayed on site in Chongqing and sorted through the company’s core competitiveness step by step. They found an advantage that could not be replicated.

On the one hand, Zhangxue has a very deep understanding of the industry. He assembles and adjusts the engine with his eyes closed and is intensely obsessed with technology.

On the other hand, because he repairs motorcycles and has also been a racing driver, he understands motorcycle performance in great depth. He knows what to modify in order to improve engine performance. He has a set of very scientific platform capabilities, backed by data—this is the content we like the most. Generally, if other companies try to imitate, they cannot do it.

In addition, their assessment of his team and the product side, from the factory workshop to the design process, engine machining process, including the assembly process and the testing process, was all very detailed. Once they nail down all these details, they dare to invest.

Moreover, Zhangxue did not fight alone. He built a team with extremely strong complementarity, forming a positive pattern of “technology leads + management fills in.”

More importantly, the company’s self-developed engine technology has reached leading levels in the industry. It successfully solved the “bottleneck” problem of large-displacement motorcycle engines and built a technological barrier that peers find difficult to imitate. A company with “small scale but high barriers, a fine team but strong capabilities” is precisely Zhejiang Venture Capital’s core target for “investing small.”

As for the company’s loss issue, Cheng Junhua also pointed to the cause: a large proportion of R&D investment. After one model is developed, they are already working on 6~7 and 7~8 new models at the same time. R&D investment is investing in the future.

In terms of technical validation, they stationed in Chongqing and checked, one by one, the entire process of the company’s design, machining, assembly, and testing. They even conducted on-site spot checks of the engine design original drawings to ensure the authenticity and feasibility of the technology.

In terms of commercial judgment, they look at both the present and the future. They pay attention to the company’s sales data of 17,000 units, and also consider long-term prospects. They also look at the growth rate of mid- and high-displacement motorcycles, which is over 44%, and they assess the ability of China’s manufacturing industry supply chain and spare parts machining to compete in going global.

Ultimately, in January this year, Zhejiang Venture Capital completed a 90 million yuan Series A investment in Zhangxue Motorcycles, and the company’s valuation reached 10.9 billion yuan.

From March 28 to 31, 2026, Zhangxue Motorcycles won the double-race championship at the WSBK (World Superbike Championship) Portugal round, breaking the European and Japanese brands’ monopoly in that top-tier event for the first time. This was only a little more than two months from the time of investment.

This investment not only gave Zhejiang Venture Capital impressive market feedback, but also provided a replicable benchmark for state-owned capital to deploy new-quality productive forces.