Strengthen financial support for major national scientific and technological tasks and small and medium-sized technology-based enterprises, and improve policies that support long-term capital investment in early-stage, small-scale, long-term, and hard-tech ventures. Technology startups are the main force behind original and disruptive innovations. However, such investments carry significant risks, especially in cutting-edge fields and the early stages of technological innovation, where the failure rate is high and there is a possibility of losing all investments. Moreover, technology startups often have high proportions of intangible assets, strong information asymmetry, and negative cash flows over the long term, making it difficult to directly match with traditional finance.
Equity investment funds, as financial instruments, can provide institutional guarantees for scientific and technological innovation and industrial transformation by diversifying risks through investment portfolios. Under the equity investment fund model, even if some sci-tech projects fail, the overall performance of the fund will still be relatively good, effectively avoiding the impact of innovation failure on investors. Additionally, in terms of serving sci-tech enterprises, on one hand, equity investment funds, as specialized sci-tech investment institutions, gather professional industry technology talents, build information networks for innovative elements, provide comprehensive living guarantees for entrepreneurs, and offer other job opportunities within the investment portfolio for entrepreneurs who fail. On the other hand, equity investment funds, through refined division of labor, have formed细分 models such as angel investment, venture capital, growth investment, and mergers and acquisitions investment, thereby accurately empowering the growth of sci-tech enterprises at various stages and effectively achieving "relay-style" financial services for technology.
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The effective functioning of equity investment funds cannot be separated from optimized support around the entire chain of "raising, investing, managing, and exiting". On the fundraising side, it is necessary to increase the cultivation and supply of patient capital; on the investment side, it is important to strengthen the connection between funds and high-quality projects and ensure long-term investment; on the management side, it is necessary to improve the management system and due diligence exemption mechanism; on the exit side, it is important to fully optimize the functions of the capital market and continuously expand the channels for mergers and acquisitions and exits. Only by continuously improving the equity investment fund system can the entire chain of "raising, investing, managing, and exiting" operate efficiently in a closed loop.
The key to the efficient operation of the entire chain of "raising, investing, managing, and exiting" also lies in the smoothness of the exit channels. Smooth exit channels are the foundation for a smooth fundraising process, a guarantee for increasing the patience of capital, and can promote investment towards original and disruptive innovation fields. At present, the further carrying capacity of China's IPO exits is limited, while the mergers and acquisitions market and S funds are key development targets. In the practice of equity investment funds in Europe and America, mergers and acquisitions are the main exit channels. In addition, as China's economic development has reached the current stage, all industries have put forward requirements for asset integration and optimization, so the mergers and acquisitions market also has a good development prospect. The next step is to continue to accelerate the construction of a diversified and multi-level equity investment exit market. On one hand, it is necessary to further optimize the functions of the capital market, especially to deepen the registration system reform; on the other hand, it is necessary to continuously expand the channels for mergers and acquisitions and exits, and cultivate merger funds and secondary market funds for venture investment.
When technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises develop to a certain scale, other financial tools can follow in time, such as loans, bonds, insurance, and listing. Insurance should play a good role in risk management, undertake, hedge, disperse, and transfer risks in technological innovation, form a risk dispersion mechanism for major technological research, develop more insurance products that adapt to the risks of scientific and technological innovation, such as intellectual property insurance, the first set of major technical equipment insurance, and the first batch of new materials insurance. Sci-tech bonds and loans should cooperate well with equity investment funds, vigorously promote enterprises to further thrive and grow after the development of sci-tech enterprises reaches a certain stage; at the same time, it is necessary to strongly support the leading enterprises of the sci-tech industry chain, and indirectly provide financial support for small and medium-sized enterprises in the industry chain through leading enterprises. New financial infrastructure such as the STAR Market, ChiNext, and the Beijing Stock Exchange should also cooperate to provide financing services for sci-tech enterprises.
In general, it is necessary to take equity investment funds as the core to form a financial service system that links "equity, loans, bonds, and insurance" to empower sci-tech enterprises in all aspects and throughout the entire cycle, effectively promoting a virtuous cycle of "technology - industry - finance".