CAS Star is a Chinese venture capital firm that focuses on investments in hard tech startups. It is backed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Background
CAS Star was founded in 2013 by Mi Lei, Cao Huitao and Li Hao. Mi and Cao were researchers at the Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Science while Li was a veteran investor.[1][2][3]
Initially the firm had difficulties raising capital. Every industry the firm invested in was when it was in its decline and therefore was not popular. Investments were expected to take a long time before there were payoffs. As a result, many investors at the time did not believe in investing in hard tech that could not generate quick returns. In addition it was difficult to know which projects were good as there were many unreliable ones and due to the long investment cycle, it was difficult to determine their value until many years later.[2]