On a night in August, dozens of young people gathered in the old residential area of He Ping Gang in the Bantian Street of Longgang District, Shenzhen, to “recharge”. In the classroom of the “Lighthouse Night School”, they were learning to operate personal community accounts using AI. At that time, they were unaware that the urban village named “He Ping Gang” beneath their feet was weaving a closer connection with AI.
On August 25, a signing ceremony took place in Nanling Village, Shenzhen: the Nanling Village Cooperative Company (hereinafter referred to as “Nanling Village Cooperative”) controlled by a private equity institution, Nanling Fund, signed a letter of intent for cooperation with the Bantian Artificial Intelligence Venture Capital Fund and the Longgang Longxing Venture Capital Fund.
It is noteworthy that the He Ping Gang Cooperative Company is one of the limited partners (LP) of the Bantian Artificial Intelligence Venture Capital Fund, and the other three LPs are also cooperative companies from Bantian Street.
Shenzhen’s “village enterprises” entering the venture capital circle is not a new phenomenon, but in the current wave of artificial intelligence, these “village enterprises” are particularly eye-catching as they break traditional development boundaries in a “grouping” manner.
New Venture Capital Funds Debut
Gathering the Strength of 12 Longgang Village Enterprises
The signing ceremony on August 25 marked the public debut of two new collective economic venture capital funds.
The Longgang Longxing Venture Capital Fund: with a total scale of 200 million yuan, led by Longxing Venture Company, jointly funded by Longgang Financial Holdings, Nanling Village, Zhangshubu Village, and Shanglilang Village, among others. Among them, Longgang Financial Holdings accounts for 30%, and Longxing Venture Company accounts for 50%. Longxing Venture Company itself was jointly initiated by five village enterprises: Nanlian Village, Nanyue Village, Longgang Village, Tongle Village, and Longdong Village. The Bantian Artificial Intelligence Venture Capital Fund: with a total scale of 100 million yuan, led by Bantian Industrial Group, jointly funded by Gangtou Cooperative, He Ping Gang Cooperative, Fengmen’ao, and four other Bantian village collectives.
This means that the two funds that debuted this time are backed by 12 village enterprises from Longgang District. Currently, both funds have completed fundraising and are fulfilling legal procedures, focusing their investment direction on strategic emerging industries and future industries, covering fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, semiconductors, high-end manufacturing, and biomedicine.
The management of the two funds—the Nanling Equity Investment Fund Management (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Nanling Fund”)—has attracted much attention. As the first venture capital fund manager established by a village collective in China, Nanling Fund was established as early as 2017. Subsequently, the Nanling Community Cooperative Company directly invested to establish Guangdong’s first village collective venture capital mother fund and completed its first angel investment in 2018, further establishing a strategic emerging industry investment fund in 2019. To date, Nanling Village has invested in more than ten projects covering biomedicine, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and electronic information. This signing also marks the first time that Nanling Fund has raised funds from other village collectives.
Since 2022, village enterprises in various districts of Shenzhen have been laying out investment fields. So far, nearly 40 village cooperative companies have entered the venture capital sector, distributed across Nanshan, Luohu, Longgang, Longhua, and Pingshan, among other areas.
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The Bantian Industrial Group is the largest LP of the Bantian Artificial Intelligence Venture Capital Fund, accounting for 50% of the investment. Public information shows that the shareholders of the group are divided into three categories: the Bantian Village Committee of Buji Town, Longgang District, Shenzhen (collective shares), the villagers of Bantian Village, Longgang District, Shenzhen (cooperative shares), and public raised shares (held by 1,944 shareholders).
The original Bantian administrative village was a large village, comprising ten villager groups. In 2004, during the “village-to-residential” reform, it was divided into six communities: Bantian, Yangmei, Maantang, etc. Like most “village enterprises” in Shenzhen, the main income of Bantian Industrial Group relies on property leasing of industrial zones, office buildings, and shops.
Regarding the intention to participate in the establishment of the fund, Zhang Donghai, chairman of Bantian Industrial Group, stated that this is the group’s “first attempt to break through the traditional leasing model” and a crucial leap. “In recent years, the adjustment of the real estate market, coupled with the scarcity of collective land resources, has forced us to explore new development paths. From almost single property leasing income to attempting equity investment, this is a breakthrough in itself.”
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Why target the AI field? Zhang Donghai explained that AI is a clear development trend, and the group’s leadership has long been focused on and optimistic about this field.The collective economy seeks transformation, leveraging the Nanling mother fund to enter the AI track. If successful, it will not only increase shareholder income but also build confidence for the transformation of the collective economy.
Chen Yinian, chairman of He Ping Gang Cooperative Company, shares the same sentiment. “Our village’s income sources are too singular, and we urgently need to find new growth points. When I graduated in the 1990s, I caught up with the internet era; now we are in the AI era, which is the windfall. I hope to lead the village to develop and soar again in the AI era.”
The enthusiasm of Shenzhen’s capital market for the artificial intelligence and robotics fields also confirms the choice of “village enterprises”. Data shows that in 2024, there were 72 financing events in Shenzhen’s robotics industry, accounting for nearly a quarter of the national total, with a high proportion of early-stage financing, reflecting capital’s long-term optimism for cutting-edge innovation. The deep linkage of the innovation chain, industrial chain, and capital chain is driving Shenzhen to become a national core highland for the “AI + robotics” industry.
Now, with village collective funds entering the AI field, it not only provides the possibility of opening up a “second growth curve” for themselves but also injects new momentum into regional industrial development. This year, Longgang District officially launched the “All in AI” strategy, and village collective funds have become a “hardcore tool” for attracting investment. Xie Da, deputy secretary of the Party Working Committee and director of the office of Bantian Street, stated that through the dual drive of “capital + industry”, more leading AI enterprises and potential projects can be attracted to “root in Bantian”, forming a virtuous cycle of “funds attracting projects, projects promoting industries”.
Error Tolerance Mechanism Breakthrough
Village Collective Economy Transformation “On the Way”
According to data from the Shenzhen State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (2021), there are nearly 1,000 cooperative companies in Shenzhen, with total assets of about 250 billion yuan, net assets exceeding 120 billion yuan, property area exceeding 100 million square meters, and bank deposits exceeding 80 billion yuan. Compared to the massive asset scale, the current investment of village collective economy in the venture capital field is still in the exploratory stage. During interviews, many “village enterprise” leaders admitted that this fund establishment is an attempt at collective economic transformation.
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A leader of a “village enterprise” revealed that the village collective economy has long had transformation ideas but has been constrained by objective factors and has not acted. On one hand, some village collective leaders are influenced by the “rental inertia thinking”, limiting their vision and hesitating to transform; on the other hand, the core concern is that if the investment fails, the leadership is afraid of taking responsibility.
Zhang Donghai stated that Bantian Industrial Group can take the first step in transformation, firstly in response to the government’s call, and secondly, the introduction of the “error tolerance mechanism” has “unbound” village collective decision-making.
In July of this year, the Longgang District government issued the “Supervision and Management Measures for Collective Assets of Cooperative Companies in Longgang District” (hereinafter referred to as “Measures”), where Article 23 clearly states the “error tolerance mechanism”: cooperative companies in management, investment decisions, and reform innovations, as long as the formulation and implementation procedures are compliant, and individuals and their units do not seek personal gain or collude maliciously with others, even if the expected results are not achieved, they can be exempted from accountability for relevant personnel. To some extent, this mechanism directly promoted the preparation and establishment of the two funds. In the future, more village cooperative companies will join the Bantian Artificial Intelligence Venture Capital Fund.
As more village collective funds flow into the hard technology field, coupled with the continuous improvement of policies such as the “error tolerance mechanism”, Shenzhen’s village collectives may be able to continue writing another development legend on the AI track after “from farmland to industrial parks”.
The significance of this transformation lies not only in making the villagers’ “pockets” fuller but also in helping the village collective economy find its “new coordinates” in the new era of industrial waves.
Editor | Su Yunjia, Nandu Bay FinanceProofreader | Zheng Shuifeng, Nandu Bay FinanceExecutive Editor | Gao Chao, Publicity DepartmentContent Source | Nandu N VideoImage Source | Internet
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