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Hengfeng New Materials has received nearly 100 million yuan in Series A financing, focusing on domestic semiconductor packaging core materials

Shanghai Hengfeng New Material Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hengfeng New Materials") recently completed a nearly 100-million-yuan Series A financing. The round was led by YaoTu Capital and Yuanhe Puhua, with follow-on investments from Yonghua Capital, Ruixia Investment, etc., and Shijing Capital served as the financial investment advisor. The funds raised in this round will be used to expand R&D, enhance quality assurance, and upgrade the product supply system.   Founded in 2018, Hengfeng New Materials is a domestic manufacturer of electronic-grade phenolic and special epoxy resins. Its core products are widely used in industries such as semiconductor packaging, copper-clad laminates, photoresists, and electronic adhesives.   Electronic resins are one of the core raw materials for semiconductor packaging materials, copper-clad laminates, photoresists, etc., and are crucial to the performance of downstream products. Electronic-grade phenolic resins and special epoxy resins have extremely high technical requirements for impurities, molecular weight distribution, etc. Their production technologies have long been monopolized by foreign companies. Domestic enterprises started relatively late, lagging behind the international leading level by 10 to 20 years as a whole.   The founder of Hengfeng New Materials told Hard氪 that Japan basically monopolizes the high-end phenolic and special epoxy resin markets. Domestic enterprises have only achieved technological breakthroughs in the past five years and are currently mainly concentrated in the mid-to-low-end markets. It is reported that the market size of domestic electronic-grade phenolic resins and special epoxy resins exceeds 20 billion yuan, most of which is occupied by Japanese, Taiwanese, South Korean and other enterprises. Mainland local enterprises account for only about 2 to 3 billion yuan, and still face the "neck-stuck" situation in the high-end market.   At the present stage, domestic upstream core materials such as resins, as well as downstream high-end semiconductor plastic packaging materials, copper-clad laminates, and photoresist markets, are all facing the monopoly of foreign-funded enterprises. Coupled with the export restrictions on semiconductor raw materials overseas, "not only are we pursuing localization, but our customers and even our customers' customers are also engaged in localization," the founder of Hengfeng New Materials told Hard氪. He believes that the key to breaking the situation lies in the overall improvement of the domestic industrial chain. Only when the industrial chain grows can local enterprises have more room for growth.   In the existing team of Hengfeng New Materials, half are R&D personnel, mainly from universities such as East China University of Science and Technology. The core team has 20 years of accumulation in the phenolic resin and epoxy resin industries.   At present, the products of Hengfeng New Materials have been recognized by many well-known enterprises in domestic industries, including leading domestic epoxy molding compound and copper-clad laminate enterprises. In addition, Hengfeng New Materials has also started to enter the supply chain system of multinational enterprises, and its products have entered well-known foreign companies.   Regarding future development plans, Hengfeng New Materials will continue to increase R&D and production of phenolic and special epoxy categories to meet the needs of domestic substitution. At the same time, Hengfeng New Materials will also explore new industry applications of phenolic and special epoxy, mainly in the fields of I-line/G-line photoresists, underfill adhesives, etc., and some products have been sent for sampling.   ### Views from Investors:   - **Song Ye, Managing Director of YaoTu Capital**: "YaoTu Capital has always believed that intelligent manufacturing is the cornerstone of China's development, and materials are the core link of intelligent manufacturing. The Hengfeng team has extremely high scarcity in the upstream material field of semiconductor packaging, and its business has been mass-introduced to leading customers. Materials are one of the key tracks laid out by YaoTu Capital. YaoTu Capital will continue to deepen the materials industry, walk with entrepreneurs, and build a materials ecosystem."   - **Yin Botao, Managing Director of Yuanhe Puhua**: Hengfeng New Materials is a rare team in China with independent R&D capabilities for basic materials and forward R&D capabilities for high-end resins. We are very optimistic that the Hengfeng team can truly help customers create highly competitive products and fill the gaps in the domestic industrial chain. As an industrial investment management institution focusing on the hard technology track, Yuanhe Puhua has invested in more than 150 projects and cultivated more than 40 listed companies in the industry. We are long-term and firmly optimistic about the hard technology track and will continue to empower invested enterprises to climb new heights!   - **Yu Hongchuan, Deputy General Manager of Yonghua Investment**: Against the backdrop of domestic manufacturing upgrading and transformation, the domestic substitution of high-barrier materials is the general trend. Hengfeng New Materials has accumulated years of experience in the special resin industry. Its product quality and R&D capabilities have been widely recognized by domestic and foreign leading manufacturers, providing customers with stable and high-quality products and services. Yonghua Investment highly recognizes the capabilities of the Hengfeng team and looks forward to Hengfeng breaking new ground on the road of domestic substitution of special resins and contributing to solving the problem of material "neck-stuck".   - **Wu Hongbin, Chairman of Ruixia Investment**: New materials are the most basic technology of the manufacturing industry. Ruixia Investment has long been concerned about investments in the new materials industry. We are optimistic about the accumulation of the Hengfeng New Materials team in the electronic-grade phenolic resin and epoxy resin industries and look forward to Hengfeng solving more "neck-stuck" problems of upstream core raw materials for the domestic semiconductor industry.