Two GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conferences Leverage Nearly 10 Billion Yuan in Financing

By Zheng Quanyi, Yu Changhuan, SFC, 21st Century Business Herald

Back in 2019, Guangzhou Jason Anime Culture Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jason Anime) was still a four-person studio for animation derivative products. Today, it has grown into a leading card game company on the verge of operating 50 brand stores and reaching 100,000 offline terminals. 

Such rapid growth was something that even Lin Jun, founder of Jason Anime, had not anticipated. Behind this growth were two key factors: the company's timely entry into a rising industry and the strong financial support it received. 

The wheels of fate began to turn when the company participated in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Cultural Industry Investment Conference (hereinafter referred to as the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference).

"We connected with some exceptionally high-quality investors and resource providers at the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference, which has significantly boosted the development of our company," said Lin Jun. In 2024, Jason Anime participated in the conference, and within a year of its roadshow, the company completed two rounds of financing. What delighted Lin Jun was that the investment valuation of the company jumped by 370%, now exceeding two billion yuan; in the first quarter of this year, the revenue of Jason Anime rose by 371% year-on-year, and it has connected with over 100 institutions.

The story of Jason Anime is a vivid illustration of what the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference is all about: connecting capital with promising projects and vice versa. Inaugurated in 2023, the conference aims to create an efficient service platform to connect cultural enterprises with investment and financing institutions. It has also driven deep integration of culture, technology, and finance, emerging as a "super connector" between investors and cultural enterprises.

A set of figures vividly illustrates the remarkable achievements of the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference. At the first edition, 18 projects participated in roadshows, with over two billion yuan in intended investment agreements signed on-site. Within one year after the conference, nine projects secured investment and financing deals, with actual financing reaching 1.51 billion yuan. At the second edition, 40 projects participated in roadshows, with over 5.6 billion yuan in intended investment agreements signed on-site. Within one year after the conference, 18 projects secured investment and financing deals, achieving actual financing of nearly eight billion yuan.

In other words, nearly half of the roadshow projects from the first two editions of the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference successfully secured investment, with total financing approaching 10 billion yuan. This relatively high conversion rate from matchmaking to actual deals not only reflects the vitality of industry-finance collaboration, but also demonstrates the platform value of the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference. Moreover, these roadshow companies achieved an average revenue growth rate of 65% and an average market valuation growth rate of 23.6%, showcasing strong growth momentum following financing.

From November 26 to 28, the 2025 GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference will be held in Guangzhou. According to the organizing committee, this conference will further strengthen its function of "deal facilitation" this year, with a key focus on increasing the number of roadshow projects to 60.

Bringing Out the Best of Each Other

In 2021, the animated film I Am What I Am burst onto the scene, combining vivid storytelling with outstanding animation techniques to showcase the unique charm of the Lingnan lion dance, a form of intangible cultural heritage that resonated with countless audiences. Three years later, I Am What I Am 2  continues the character setup and underdog-against-the-odds theme of its predecessor, while showing greater maturity in its grounded storytelling, thematic depth, and animation technology, and has once again achieved great success.

Yi Animation is one of the producers of I Am What I Am. Reflecting on the creative journey of this animated film, Cheng Haiming, Chairman of Yi Animation, recalls it with deep emotions. The series of I Am What I Am continuously experiments with new technical effects in digital characters, scenes, and animation performance, but this also means enormous expenditures for filmmaking. Before 2023, the production team behind I Am What I Am 2 had been struggling to secure funding.

Without funding, the second film risked being stuck in a predicament of production standstill. The turning point came from the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference. At the inaugural conference in 2023, a group of venture capital institutions reached out to Yi Animation after its roadshow. Cheng Haiming recalls, "The first GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference attracted numerous investors. After our roadshow, we followed up with many participating investment institutions."

After several rounds of negotiations, the animated film I Am What I Am 2  ultimately secured nearly 50 million yuan in financing. Moreover, at the second conference, Yi Animation once again signed project investment cooperation agreements with investors. In this way, through the platform of the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference, multiple local government-led cultural tourism funds and professional funds affiliated with cultural tourism enterprises provided nearly one-third of the production budget for I Am What I Am 2.

Nowdays, the high-quality development of the cultural industry cannot be achieved without financial support. Most cultural enterprises operate as asset-light businesses, and for boundless imagination to become reality, they need a constant flow of capital to nurture their business.

This is precisely the value of the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference as a "super connector" between investment institutions and cultural enterprises.

Data show that over its first two editions, the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference has announced cultural industry investment funds totaling around 25 billion yuan. At the first event, 18 roadshow projects attracted more than two billion yuan in intended investment, with nine projects going on to secure actual investment of 1.51 billion yuan within a year. At the second event, 40 projects were presented in roadshows, drawing more than 5.6 billion yuan in letters of intent, with 19 projects securing nearly eight billion yuan in actual financing over the following year.

Xie Xiaoping, Secretary-General of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Cultural and Creative Industry Promotion Association, told us, "The GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference values innovation in cultural projects in terms of technology, content, and business models. For cultural enterprises, this gathering brings together investors who understand the cultural industry. With more common ground between investors and project owners, it becomes much easier to get deals done."

Therefore, cultural enterprises participating in the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference roadshows have achieved remarkable results in performance growth, valuation increases, market activity, and financing amounts. For example, Zhipu AI's valuation before participating in the 2023 conference roadshow was 3.5 billion yuan, and by the end of 2024, its post-money valuation had reached 26 billion yuan. The valuation of Guangzhou Jason Anime Culture Co., Ltd. before participating in the 2024 conference roadshow was less than 600 million yuan, and by June 2025, its post-money valuation from Hengdian Group Capital had reached two billion yuan.

According to Xie Xiaoping, the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference is where cultural enterprises can most easily find their direction, clarify their goals and rekindle hope. The strengths and distinctive features of cultural enterprises become more visible to the market and investment institutions. Consequently, their valuations are enhanced, which is crucial for cultural innovative enterprises in high-growth phases.

Moreover, venture capital institutions have also reaped substantial rewards at the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference. Xie Xiaoping explains, "The GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference aggregates the most popular investment tracks in the cultural sector. Institutions investing in the cultural industry can come here and find the projects they are looking for. For example, Haitong Leading Private Equity Fund Management Co., Ltd. has invested in six projects in the GBA, and three of them were discovered at the conference."

Ecosystem Integration

As China's largest cultural industry province, Guangdong has maintained its top position in cultural industry scale for 22 consecutive years. In May 2025, Guangdong unveiled a policy package to drive the high-quality development of its cultural industries. The package, which includes 87 targeted measures across six sectors, is designed to help new cultural business formats achieve fresh breakthroughs in Guangdong. The GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference complements these efforts, serving as an innovative initiative for Guangdong to advance high-quality development of the cultural industry.

Behind this lies a broader trend: the cultural industry is entering a new stage of deep integration of culture, technology, and finance. Xie Xiaoping says, "When we first approached investment institutions, their initial reaction was that investment in the cultural industry was very narrow and highly specialized, confined to sectors such as film and television, gaming and cultural-creative products. But now they understand that the investment tracks at the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference are primarily focused on new quality productive forces emerging from the integration of culture and technology, representing investment in future lifestyles and production methods."

"The value of the cultural industry is being re-rated by technology. Therefore, we focus primarily on technology-driven companies that are reshaping the efficiency of content production and distribution," said Fu Zheng, Founder and CEO of Falcon Invest. Against this backdrop, the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference acts like a bridge, linking cultural creativity with industrial capital and ensuring that outstanding innovative cultural-industry projects do not go unnoticed.

"The GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference is not only a showcase, but also an accelerator for the innovation ecosystem of the cultural industry," said Wang Zheng, Deputy General Manager of Yuecai Zhongyuan Private Equity Fund Management (Guangdong) Co., Ltd. Through the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference, we can accelerate the growth of our portfolio companies in IP development, technology integration, and commercial implementation.

Wang Zheng gave an example: "During the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference last year, we discovered a 3D printing company with highly advanced technology capable of rapid production of figurines and personalized products, avoiding the material waste caused by mold-making and casting in traditional manufacturing. It is both environmentally friendly and significantly reduces costs." Recently, this company has completed over 100 million yuan in financing, with Yuecai Zhongyuan Private Equity Fund Management (Guangdong) Co., Ltd. as a major investor.

The cultural industry is an ideal testing ground for technology applications. Many new technologies, in their rapid development process, find perfect application scenarios in the cultural sector. Therefore, the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference is also committed to serving as a platform for matching technology with real-world application scenarios. It aims to promote the rapid transformation of new technologies, backed by capital, into new business formats and new products particularly by enabling them to be implemented in the super scenarios of the Greater Bay Area (GBA).

There is no shortage of examples from the past two editions of the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference.  Visiotrip, for example, participated in the 2023 GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference and successfully secured 100 million yuan in Series A financing through its roadshow. Subsequently, it launched VtripGPT 1.0, China's first large language model tailored for tourism, using AI technology to integrate fragmented products "end-to-end" and deliver them to users in the form of dynamically customized packages. Altstory Inc., after participating in the 2024 GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference, has been able to connect with numerous investment institutions. Kun Peng, the founder of Altstory Inc., stated that moving forward, Altstory Inc. will develop and deploy AI-powered interactive live streaming and interactive cultural tourism businesses, actively exploring application scenarios for implementation in the GBA.

He Guoyong, Deputy Secretary-General of the Organizing Committee of the GBA Cultural Industry Investment Conference, believes that the core of cultural investment is to invest in the future of production and lifestyles, and that AI is becoming the key variable connecting both of them. It not only spawns new cultural business formats and consumption scenarios, reshaping everyday experiences, but also deeply embeds itself throughout the entire creative chain, disrupting traditional production processes and injecting sustainable new quality productive forces into the cultural industry.