On Dec. 15th, Gingkoo, a fintech company listed on China’s NEEQ(National Equities Exchange and Quotations), an official financing platform for high-tech and innovation start-ups, has announced it has completed its financing in the form of private placement to fund RMB 160 million( 23 million USD), making it the largest funding in China’s Blockchain industry.

The investor behind Gingkoo is Jiangsu Zhongnan Construction Group Co.,Ltd, an A-share listed company. Founded in 1988, Zhongnan Construction focused on real estate and infrastructure and went to pubic in 1999. The company with long history in Chinese capital market has made its first move in investing blockchain industry just in November 2016 by investing 4 million USD to PeerNova, an American blockchain company. These investment behaviors are among the company’s strategic transition move, which was started from the end of 2015 by company’s board, from traditional construction industry to big data area. The company’s ambition of the complete transition is embodied by its huge investment into Gingkoo this time.

Founded in Shanghai Free Trade Zone in 2013 and listed in NEEQ in 2016 June, Gingkoo is a leading IT solution provider for payment and clearance, tax filing and management and statistics monitor in finance area. With Zhongnan accounting for 33.3% of its ownership structure now, Gingkoo has gained enough fuel to drive its efforts in Blockchain.

In an exclusive interview with 8btc, Bruce Zeng, the head of GingKoo Block Chain Department said to us:

“The success financing of Gingkoo will have huge positive impact for the company to explore and expand business in Blockchain and other financial area.”

Then is this move meaningful for China’s blockchain industry? Bruce confirmed the positive message of the financing. He said to us:

“My personal feeling is that the success of financing has shown that Blockchain industry has passed the pure “concept” period. A company like us, which processes technology, understands application scenario and acc more companies like us to finance on thumulates clients will be attractive to capital. In the meantime, the financing this time is not venture capital but is channeled from national platform, NEEQ. It means in the future there will be more companies to seek funding on official platforms, making the blockchain industry more regulation and standard based.”

When interviewed, the company said:

“Zhongnan Group will make the most of Gingkoo’s resources to apply them into the company’s existing business including REITs, chain Hotel and co-working space. Zhongnan will also further integrate the previous investment to build its core competitiveness in big data and Blockchain, ensuring Gingkoo will become the best platform for asset digitalization in China.”

In an official announcement, Gingkoo has promised that the sales of Gingkoo Group in 2017 will be no less than RMB 70 million (USD 10.06 million) with net profits no less than RMB 7 million (USD 1.006 million) in 2017. In 2018, the promise is that the sales are no less than RMB 120 million (USD 17.25 million ) and net profits are no less than RMB 13 million yuan (USD187 thousand). If Gingkoo doesn’t reach the targets, it will have to compensate Zhongnan Group with shares.

8btc has long followed Chinese capital move in bitcoin and Blockchain(see our article). Tough we have already witnessed investment from BAT (Baidu Alibaba and Tencent) into Blockchain, this is the first time for an A-share company to invest a Chinese Blockchain company in such a aggressive way. Capital seldom makes mistakes in terms of the choice of potential area.Chinese capital is proving its vision.