Building the Future of Hard Tech

Most VCs chase software and healthcare, where returns are quicker and safer. CM Venture Capital takes a different path: hard tech – materials, energy, industrial technology, and hardware-focused digital transformation. Complex, capital-intensive, and often slow to scale, this is the space where CM believes the most durable breakthroughs happen.

Unlike most global VCs rooted in Silicon Valley, CM is headquartered in China – today’s largest market for industrial innovation. In the first half of 2025 alone, Chinese industrial IPOs raised $10B, leading the world. From this vantage point, CM invests globally – across Europe, the US, and beyond – combining local depth with international standards.

Scientists at the Helm

CM was founded in 2010 by Dr. Min Zhou and Dr. Patrick Berbon, both PhD scientists with years of R&D and startup experience. Their technical expertise gives CM the ability to invest in breakthroughs at the very earliest stages – sometimes even before revenue. Where others hesitate, CM can evaluate the science directly and back the most promising ideas with confidence.

But CM’s value goes beyond capital. Its 1,700 m² Shanghai hub houses growth directors and marketing specialists who help portfolio companies with customers, manufacturing, IP, branding, and cross-border expansion.

A Global Industrial Ecosystem

CM’s LPs include multinational industrial leaders such as BASF and GE. This ecosystem creates instant access for startups to global supply chains, distribution channels, and blue-chip customers.

The firm also acts as a bridge. For foreign startups entering China, CM finds partners and customers while managing cultural and regulatory hurdles. For Chinese companies going global, CM provides the reverse support.

Defining success

Success in hard tech doesn’t always look like a billion-dollar IPO overnight. For CM, success often means helping a company become the best in its niche, building industry leadership and long-term resilience.

One example is CM’s investment in China’s leading hydrogen equipment company Guofu Hydrogen, now a listed firm in which CM remains the largest institutional shareholder. Another is a smaller venture in waste-to-energy: Enwise, which turns PepsiCo’s potato peel waste into onsite biogas power plants. Its revenues are still modest, but it is already recognised as the number one player in its field, with a blue-chip customer base.

These stories reflect CM’s investment philosophy: a small number of carefully chosen bets – three to four per year – but a high success rate and a portfolio filled with companies that are shaping the future of industrial innovation.

Partnering with Happiness

Recently, CM added Happiness Capital to its ecosystem of partners. While the relationship is still young, CM has already expressed admiration for Happiness’s achievements. Despite being a lean, globally distributed team, Happiness has ranked among the top 20 most active corporate VCs worldwide, with more than 30 deals closed in a single year.

For CM, working with Happiness brings not only capital but a kindred philosophy: an emphasis on bold bets, a global outlook, and the belief that venture capital should do more than provide money – it should build ecosystems where transformative companies can thrive.