China NDRC to deploy national venture fund for early-stage hard tech

The move signals a policy shift toward de-risking the earliest, least liquid end of China's tech funding chain, where private capital has been most reluctant. It matters most for hard-tech founders and specialist deep-tech funds that have struggled to raise domestic LP money for pre-revenue ventures. The open question is whether the accompanying guarantees and insurance products are enough to pull genuine social capital into seed stages, or whether the state simply ends up crowding out private investors rather than crowding them in.