Apr 24, 2023

Photo by Brian Kostiuk on Unsplash. 24 April, 2023 Xuzhou B&C Chemical, a Chinese maker of the semiconductor material photoresists, has raised over 600 million yuan ($86.9 million) in a new funding round at a post-money valuation of about 7 billion yuan (over $1 billion). B&C Chemical, whose early backers include China’s Huawei Technologies, secured the new financing from two lead investors, namely Shanghai-based private equity (PE) firm Zhongping Capital and Guokai Technology Venture Investment, a subsidiary of state-owned China Development Bank Capital, said the firm in its latest statement. B&C Chemical said that the investment will speed up its R&D of self-developed photoresist technologies and expand its production capacity, as the firm looks to transform into a refined chemical platform. A group of domestic investment companies participated in the round, such as semiconductor-focused New Hope Capital, hard tech investment firm V Fund, and early-stage venture capital (VC) firm Qingsong Fund. The deal also attracted China’s state investors, including Suzhou International Development Venture Capital and Shandong Railway Development Fund. Founded in 2010, B&C Chemical came under the spotlight of the PE-VC circle in August 2021 when the firm completed a 300-million-yuan ($43.5 million) investment from Hubble Technology Investment. Hubble was launched in 2019 by Chinese technology giant Huawei to step up its investments in companies that are racing to build China’s semiconductor supply chain. Following the investment from Hubble, the firm raised two investments in 2022 from investors including Prosperity Investment, Xin Ding Capital, Ruixin Capital, and New Hope Capital. Earlier this year, it raised what it refers to as “tens of millions of Chinese yuan” from Acer Capital, a Shenzhen-based PE focusing on hard technologies like semiconductors and material science. In July 2022, B&C Chemical entered into an agreement with its shareholder HMT Xiamen New Technical Materials, a domestic auto parts and textile fabrics manufacturer, to set up a joint venture (JV) for the construction of a plant capable of producing 8,000 tonnes of mid-to-high-end photoresists per year. The duo expected to complete the plant construction in 18 months and targeted to put it into operation around 2023-2024, the publicly-listed HMT Xiamen New Technical Materials disclosed in a stock exchange filing. The plant’s annual output value is estimated at more than 2 billion yuan ($289.7 million).