About Zero2IPO

Zero2IPO

Zero2IPO (Chinese: 清科; pinyin: Qīng Kē) is a Beijing-headquartered service provider to China's venture capital and private equity industry, and a publicly listed company on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under stock code 1945. The group describes its work as integrated equity investment services: it collects and sells data on China's venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) markets, publishes research and annual rankings, runs conferences and networking events for investors and entrepreneurs, provides investment banking services, and offers training for people working in the industry. In a market that grew rapidly from the early 2000s but long lacked a single trusted source of deal information, Zero2IPO built its position by systematically recording who was investing, in what, and on what scale — work that made its databases and rankings a standard reference for firms operating in China.

Founding and Founder

Zero2IPO was founded in 2000 by Gavin Ni, whose full name is Zhengdong Ni. Ni is a graduate of Tsinghua University, one of China's leading universities, and he had a brief stint in journalism before moving into venture capital. That combination — reporting skills applied to a young, poorly documented investment industry — shaped the company's original approach. Rather than managing other people's money as a fund, Zero2IPO set out to document and service the people who did. Ni has remained the company's central figure throughout its history, serving as its chief executive and chairman, and company profiles continue to list him as its key person more than two decades after its founding.

The Research Centre and the First VC/PE Database

The group's research arm, the Zero2IPO Research Center, was founded in November 2001. In its early years the centre conducted large-scale surveys of the Chinese venture capital industry and produced a series of reports and directories at a time when reliable information about China-focused funds was scarce, particularly for overseas investors trying to understand the market. Out of that survey work came the China VentureDatabase, described at its launch as China's first venture capital and private equity investment database. According to the launch announcement, the research centre had spent years collecting and classifying survey data before compiling it into the database, which brought together information on China's VC and PE investment markets, mergers and acquisitions, and the overseas and domestic listings of Chinese enterprises. The database was aimed at VC and PE firms, entrepreneurs and the professional service providers who work with them.

PEdata and the Scale of Its Data

The successor to that early database is PEdata, the group's flagship data product. PEdata is a software-as-a-service system that integrates multi-dimensional data on China's equity investment industry and is used by investors, entrepreneurs, growth enterprises and government agencies. The scale the database had reached by the end of 2013 gives a sense of the operation: it held itemised information on more than 8,000 VC and PE firms, more than 6,000 institutional investors, more than 20,000 China-focused funds, tens of thousands of individual investors and more than 20,000 VC and PE deals. The information was gathered through regular questionnaire surveys covering the most active China-focused investment institutions, periodic telephone surveys and other published reports. In 2021 the company launched PEDATA MAX, described as a professional SaaS system, continuing the shift of its data business onto subscription software.

Four Business Segments

Zero2IPO Holdings reports its business in four segments. Data services cover the PEdata database and the research reports produced from it. Marketing services promote clients and events within the investment community. Investment banking services advise on transactions and fundraising in the equity investment market. Training services are delivered through SandHill College, the group's training platform for the VC and PE industry. Alongside PEdata and SandHill College, the group's best-known online platforms have included PEdaily, which provides news and information about the industry, and Deal-Market, which matches investors with entrepreneurs. Together the four segments are designed to serve the same community of funds, founders and advisers at different points in the investment cycle.

Research Reports and Annual Rankings

Research publishing has been central to Zero2IPO's reputation from the beginning. Its research centre — also known in earlier descriptions of the group as its Financial Information Services operation — releases annual, quarterly and customised research reports covering venture capital, private equity, mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings in China. Those reports are used by investors, limited partners, investment banks, auditing firms, law firms and entrepreneurs. Each year the group also publishes its China venture capital and private equity rankings, which are widely quoted across the industry. The methodology behind the more recent annual rankings, as described by firms honoured in them, is data-driven and quantifiable, assessing institutions across dimensions including China-focused capital under management, fundraising during the period, the number and size of investment transactions, and overall exit returns. The 2025 edition of the ranking, for example, placed IDG Capital first on its list of the top 50 China venture capital institutions — an illustration of how the lists continue to be treated as a benchmark by the firms they cover.

Conferences, Forums and Networking

Zero2IPO is also an events business. Its media and networking operations were created to give entrepreneurs and investors a place to meet, and from 2001 onwards the group organised China Venture Capital Forums and a long series of Z-Club activities for its community. Early descriptions of the business recorded more than ten China Venture Capital Forums and over fifty Z-Club activities, with thousands of participants each year attending conferences and club events in Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, London and Silicon Valley. The group's main client groups for these events have been local government agencies, which use investment forums to attract funds and companies to their regions, and investors themselves. The events business complements the data business: the same firms that subscribe to PEdata appear on stage, in the audience and in the rankings announced around the group's conferences.

Hong Kong Listing

After two decades as a private company, Zero2IPO applied for an initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in June 2020, saying the proceeds would be used to expand its geographical coverage in China, broaden its service offerings and expand into other areas such as Southeast Asia and India. The listing took place on 30 December 2020, when Zero2IPO Holdings became a listed company under stock code 1945. The offering attracted exceptional retail demand and was oversubscribed 1,393 times, according to reports of the listing. The Hong Kong listing gave the group a public-market identity of its own — an unusual position for a company whose business is documenting the listings and exits of others.

Investment Banking and Later Developments

The group's investment banking arm expanded after the listing. In 2021, Zero2IPO's subsidiary in Hong Kong obtained a licence from the Securities and Futures Commission to provide investment banking services, and the group assisted the artificial intelligence company SenseTime in its initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that year. In 2022, Zero2IPO and CNCB Capital formed a special-purpose acquisition company, TechStar Acquisition Corporation, which was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. These moves extended the group beyond information provision into regulated transaction work in Hong Kong, alongside its established mainland data, marketing and training operations.

Offices and Who It Serves

Zero2IPO is headquartered in Beijing, in the Chaoyang District, and the group has maintained offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Silicon Valley, reflecting the geography of the industry it covers: funds and companies in China's main commercial centres, the Hong Kong market where many of them list, and the United States technology hub that has long been a source of both capital and comparison for Chinese venture investing. Its customers span the equity investment chain — venture and private equity firms, institutional and individual investors, entrepreneurs and growth companies, government agencies that track or promote investment, and the banks, law firms and auditors that advise on deals.

Role in China's Equity Investment Industry

Zero2IPO's significance lies less in any single product than in the infrastructure it built for an industry that, when it was founded in 2000, had little reliable public information. By creating China's first VC and PE database, sustaining annual research and rankings over more than two decades, and gathering the industry at its forums, the group helped make China's venture market legible to itself and to foreign participants. Its own trajectory mirrors that market's development: founded at the start of China's venture boom, built on surveys and directories, converted into subscription data services, and eventually listed in Hong Kong in 2020 as a services company serving the investors it had spent twenty years documenting.