Investor Profile: Linear Capital — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

Linear Capital funding is for founders solving "Real Problems" with advanced technology. Founded in 2014 by Harry Wang — Facebook's first Chinese R&D manager — and former JD/Tmall executive Michael Zhang, Linear Capital is a frontier-tech fund based in Shanghai that leads investments from angel to Series A. Its official site is linear.vc.

Investment thesis

The firm's own line: it has "consistently prioritized a technology-driven approach, identifying startups at the earliest stages that excel at applying advanced technologies to solve 'Real Problems'." In an earlier incarnation the fund described itself as "the best Applied Data Intelligence capital fund in China"; the current positioning is broader frontier-technology applications.

Sectors and stages

Stated sectors: AI software & applications; AI hardware & embodied intelligence; and AI for science & manufacturing (energy, materials, biotech). On stage, Linear typically leads investments from angel to Series A — it is an earliest-stage lead investor, not a growth follower.

Cheque size and fund size

Cheque size is publicly stated on the firm's site: a standard commitment of $1M–$10M per project, with exceptions possible for exceptional cases. The firm also states it currently manages 10 funds with AUM of more than $2B, across 170+ portfolio companies with a total portfolio value above $30B.

Notable portfolio

Names verified on the firm's own site: Horizon Robotics — Linear was its first institutional investor, and the company is listed on the HKEX — plus Agile Robots, Manycore Tech, EHang, Rokid and Tezign. Also featured: TARS (embodied AI), Rino.ai (L4 autonomous driving), RIVR (embodied robotics — Linear was first investor) and Deep Principle (AI for chemistry and materials).

Key people

Harry Wang is Founder & CEO (Stanford MS&E, Zhejiang University CS; WEF Young Global Leader 2018). Partners include Neil Zeng (ex-Goldman Sachs London), Jun Yang (ex-Google, Meta, Square; co-founder & CTO of Dada Group through its 2020 Nasdaq IPO) and Managing Director Can Zheng (ex-Morgan Stanley).

Programmes for founders

None publicly listed. Linear does not appear to run an accelerator or structured founder programme; it hosts occasional ecosystem salons — a 2025 salon on AI consumer hardware was reported by 36kr — but these are events, not an application-based pipeline.

How to apply for funding

How to get funding from Linear Capital: the firm publishes no public pitch form or email — the linear.vc/contact page returns a 404 and no contact route appears in the site's readable content. Founders typically reach the team through warm introductions or the partners' LinkedIn profiles; founder Harry Wang's LinkedIn is linked from the firm's team page. Do not use scraped or estimated email formats found on data-broker sites — none is the firm's official pitch channel.