Our Own Capital

We have put our own money
into the companies we serve.

• We invest only in companies we have served deeply and see most clearly. If we cannot see clearly, we do not invest. If we see clearly and the price is wrong, we do not invest either.

We work in-house so that we stand in the same trench as the entrepreneur; we commit our own money so that we know, concretely, what an investor is worried about. The companies below are those in which Glaciers has invested its own capital.

• D-Robotics
• ASTRONSTONE
• DISCOVER Robotics
• CAYE
• XY
• Spirit AI
• Paxini
• Volant Aerotech
• YIMU
• Evotrex
• OBSBOT
• Yarbo
• Rino.ai
• Robosen
• Yucca DPU
• Okawa
• ARCGine
• 碳硅无界
• 第一推力

Service → Deep Service → Investment

• Portfolio Companies served: 80+
• Proprietary co-investment (skin in the game): 19 companies (partial)

The list is not three piles laid side by side but a process of inward convergence: many companies served, some served deeply, and our own capital committed only where we see most clearly.

The list covers investments made directly with our own capital and through affiliated entities, in no particular order; a few stay unlisted — confidentiality agreements, or their own tempo.

This chapter also appears on the home page at index.html#skin

We take on few, because we intend to walk back.

The same South Pole, two expeditions. One reached the Pole and returned safely; one never came back. The difference lay in redundancy, not in numbers.

Redundancy first, returns second

Safety ranks far above the rate of return. The three tons of supplies are risk redundancy: set aside margin for the mistakes and accidents that are bound to come, before discussing what the journey might bring back.

One more mandate is margin withdrawn

Less is more. The number of mandates is strictly limited — to take one more is to withdraw margin from the companies already in hand.

Fair weather or foul, thirty kilometres a day

Hot markets or cold, the pace stays the same. We believe a sustainable tempo carries the team to the finish, and that it is more dependable than any sprint.

Winning means making it back

Arrival is not the end; returning to camp is. Nor is closing the end: only when the company still stands in the next cycle is the journey complete.

• Deep researchRead one thing to the bottom, then act.
• Forward insightSay it clearly before consensus forms.
• Ample resourcesMoney, people, time — all provisioned for the hardest stretch.

First the person, then the category. That is the entire mechanism of “taking on few.”

• Founder cooperationThis comes before every other condition.
• The first tier of a surging sectorThe one already running at the very front.
• The undervalued pearlMisread by the market; one polish and it shines.
• Scale for M&A and restructuringWith sufficient scale, structure itself creates value.
• Companies we have invested in ourselvesWhere we have put in money, we carry the responsibility to the end.

The first is the precondition. The four that follow are the four kinds of work we are genuinely sure of; outside them we are not good enough, and we would rather not cost a company its time.

This chapter also appears on the home page at index.html#amundsen

In eight years, Glacier has grown two forms.

Fixing the roof while the sun shines: in the best of years, we set up the next eight.

• Restraint.The first keyword of the second eight years. Know the watermelons from the sesame seeds; every move must be worthy of the trust accumulated over the first eight.
• Fast, in delivery.One Glacier quarter is one year. The same milestones, on shorter cycles, with greater certainty. Speed comes not from late nights, but from the compounding of method.
• Slow, in choosing.A general on the march does not chase hares. Take on fewer, choose with precision, and keep every ounce of strength for the companies that deserve it.

This chapter also appears on the home page at index.html#eighth-year

A startup is a spaceship bound for space, on a voyage with no return.
And your sea of stars is this: to build another home, far away.

We hold in reverence the youth, the capital, and the sunk costs entrepreneurs have already committed. So we keep subtracting: quality up, concurrency down.

• We take twenty to thirty mandates a year, half of them existing clients coming back for the next round.
• Few projects, partner-led, deeply in-house. What takes on a project is a specific person, not a generic process — the partner sits from the first meeting to the day of closing, with no hand-off in between.
• The true ceiling on a firm's scale is not how many people it can hire, but how many people it can keep in the same context. We keep the team within that boundary.
• 36 people, 6 SEAL teams.

Each week, we also confirm what should stop: which institutions to pause, which meetings to stop scheduling, which materials to stop revising, which matters no longer deserve a founder's attention. Without stopping, there is no focus.

Focus, to the utmost. Slow is fast.
Focus deeply. Move decisively.

This chapter also appears on the home page at index.html#capacity

We set out to be an FA that is respected,
that walks every mandate it takes all the way back, and that never gives up.

LONG-TERM VISION

To Be Respected

That entrepreneurs, investors, and peers alike come to respect this name — delivery after delivery.

Walk It All the Way Back

Once we take it on, we stay with the company until it is through. That is why we take on few.

Never Give Up

A deal may be delayed, may be restarted — but it will not be abandoned.

VALUES

Put Our Money In

Judgment must be tested with our own money; allegiance must be proven in the same trench.

Stand With the Non-Consensus

Before consensus forms, stand at the entrepreneur's side.

Never Give Up

We once sat ten months on the cold bench — and at the end of it, we got the deal done.

The six sentences settle on one self-imposed standard: reputation is the only ranking that counts — this quarter's project quality must beat the last's.

This chapter also appears on the home page at index.html#vision

Simple things become harder the more you do them; hard things become simpler the more you do them.

Glacier people compare only with themselves; Glacier Capital compares only with the Glacier Capital of the past.

Define the problem with a philosopher's clarity, approach the facts through investigation and research, commit for the long term with an operator's sense of duty, and close the loop with a dealmaker's decisiveness.

This chapter also appears on the home page at index.html#philosophy

Third-party rankings · Qimingpian 2026 mid-year lists

Glacier Capital China entered the TOP 3 of three lists at once in Qimingpian's 2026 Mid-Year Rankings · China Private Equity Series: Best Financial Adviser (overall), Financial Adviser in Artificial Intelligence, and Financial Adviser in Embodied Intelligence. In the same month Glacier Capital China placed TOP 1 on Qimingpian's “August FA Ranking.” The rankings are compiled and published by Qimingpian, a third party.

The ranking images and the full lists are in Glacier Institute, at institute.html#sec-awards