Recently,Acchrom-Tech a domestic full-platform enterprise specializing in chromatography equipment, software and consumables, has completed a Pre-B round of financing exceeding 100 million yuan. This round of financing was jointly led by Jingguo Rui Fund and Beijing High-end Industry Investment Fund managed by Beijing Industry Investment, with existing investors HuaHui Fund and Jiaqiao Capital following up. The funds raised in this round will be mainly used for further construction of domestic and international sales channels and the development of next-generation products. Changhai Capital continues to serve as the company's exclusive financial advisor for this financing.  

Since its establishment in 2015, Acchrom-Tech has developed a product matrix including HPLC, UHPLC and corresponding software and consumables. Currently, the company's own brand instruments have a market share of several thousand units in the mainstream chromatography application market. With a mature and compliant software system and service system, Acchrom-Tech has established a significant competitive advantage in the domestic LC field. It is one of the few domestic manufacturers that can enter the standard-setting units such as customs, quality inspection, and drug supervision in large quantities, as well as key commercial customers such as pharmaceutical companies and CRO enterprises.  

Beyond its existing products, Acchrom-Tech  is constantly expanding its product matrix to better achieve platform-scale effects. In January this year, Acchrom-Tech  reached a strategic cooperation with Zhongyuan Huiji to jointly promote the localization of clinical LC and MS technologies. Acchrom-Tech  has also joined hands with the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and East China University of Science and Technology to deeply carry out industry-university-research cooperation and jointly explore new models and paths for collaborative innovation.

Zhongyuan Huiji and Acchrom-Tech have reached a strategic cooperation

The localization of the largest single item of scientific instruments is of great significance, and domestic LC instruments are entering a development window period

Scientific instruments are the "eyes" of scientists. Virtually all breakthroughs in scientific research rely on the support of basic scientific instrument facilities. At the same time, scientific instruments are the "brain" of the equipment manufacturing industry and an important foundation for the high-quality development of emerging industries such as biotechnology, high-end manufacturing, and new-generation information technology. In 2024, China imported precision instruments worth 90.982 billion yuan from the United States, exceeding the value of soybeans (85.6 billion yuan) and integrated circuits (83.6 billion yuan), making it an undisputed "bottleneck" area.  

However, the instrumentation industry itself has over 17,000 product categories, presenting a small and fragmented feature. LC is the top single product in scientific instruments, with very wide applications in the fields of pharmaceuticals, food, environmental protection, petrochemicals, etc. The domestic existing market for LC instruments, their consumables and services exceeds 10 billion yuan per year, and over 90% of the market is currently monopolized by imported brands. LC instruments have long maintained a high trade deficit.

LC have long maintained a state of high trade deficit

Therefore, the significance of the localization of LC is not merely the autonomy of a single life science tool, but also a "ballast stone" to ensure the supply chain security of industrial enterprises, research institutes and government inspection units. Mastering the domestic production of LC is to grasp the "bull by the horns" in the core field of scientific instruments, and only in this way can we maintain the bottom line of technological security in the competition among major countries in the future.

Adhering to this concept, Acchrom-Tech has been dedicated to research and development and long-term accumulation since 2015. It has spent 10 years building a complete LC product platform and service and marketing system. In the face of the escalating Sino-US "trade war", the support policies at the national and provincial and municipal levels have been accelerating in detail and implementation, and the awareness of supply chain security among industrial customers has been continuously enhanced. The process of domestic substitution of LC instruments has been comprehensively accelerated, and the market pattern that has long been dominated by imports is about to witness a historic turning point.

Centering on the characteristics of the scientific instrument industry, which features a large market, small niches, a wide range of products, and diverse applications, the company has developed a rich chromatography product matrix and formed a large number of targeted industry application solutions, which can meet the usage needs of different scenarios for customers in various fields.  

In terms of hardware technology, the domestic production rate of core components of Acchrom-Tech chromatographs has reached over 95%, and the upstream supply chain is fully self-controlled, effectively avoiding potential risks brought by trade disputes. The entire R&D and production chain of related consumables such as chromatographic columns is fully autonomous, capable of achieving equivalent substitution of imported manufacturers' products, with stable mass production and high cost performance.  

Having chromatography software that meets regulatory requirements is a key pillar for Acchrom-Tech to build a differentiated competitive advantage. Domestic teams with independent R&D capabilities and the ability to ensure full compliance of the software throughout the process are extremely rare. Acchrom-Tech, with its years of technological accumulation and in-depth understanding of the compliance system, has now established a significant technological barrier in this field. The software includes multiple modules such as control, algorithms, and data supervision, and requires the convergence of talents from various fields such as demand, development, testing, and application to achieve it. Whether in the drug research and production process in foreign or domestic markets, chromatography software that meets regulatory compliance requirements must be used for process control and data storage. For official regulatory agencies and large pharmaceutical companies and CRO enterprises, compliant liquid chromatography software is an important defense line for product quality.

The development of chromatography software that complies with GXP industry regulatory requirements is the main bottleneck for domestic LC to enter the mainstream market. The software development cycle is long and requires significant resource investment. Facing this barrier, Acchrom-Tech has spent eight years developing a domestic compliant chromatography control software with completely independent intellectual property rights, full-chain auditing, and advanced intelligent data analysis capabilities, which meets international regulatory standards. Currently, it is operating stably in multiple regulatory agencies and commercial customers. In the future, this software can also be expanded for use in LCMS and GC fields.

Domestic substitution is not a short-term project. To break through the barriers of imported brands, it is not only necessary to have a fully independent and controllable product matrix and solution to build "hard power", but also to rely on a professional and systematic marketing and support service team to create "soft power".

Acchrom-Tech has achieved a distribution of customers in all fields, with outstanding growth in government institutions and pharmaceutical enterprises.  

Based on over a decade of accumulation, Acchrom-Tech has established a full-chain marketing system covering "market leadership-sales operation-industry solutions-technical after-sales", capable of providing comprehensive solutions to customers' demands promptly. The delivery cycle, after-sales service and application support of its products are all at the forefront of the industry.

Acchrom-Tech adheres to the core strategy of "precisely positioning the top market + building vertical field solutions", taking "policy-oriented benchmark customers" such as customs, quality inspection and drug supervision, as well as "commercial benchmark customers" like large pharmaceutical companies and CROs as the core growth engines. It has maintained a high level of business growth over the past three years.

In recent years, Acchrom-Tech has achieved remarkable results in cooperation with benchmark customers: from the initial business breakthrough, achieving a key breakthrough of dozens of units in procurement volume, to this year, it has reserved over a hundred potential orders. The frequency and scale of customer repurchase have continued to steadily increase, forming a long-term and stable cooperative relationship. Looking ahead, Acchrom-Tech will be driven by technological innovation, deepen the construction of the service system, and continuously explore the cooperation potential with benchmark customers. It aims not only to achieve stepwise growth in procurement scale but also to create an industry cooperation model, jointly explore more diversified business scenarios with customers, and expand a broader market blueprint in mutual benefit and win-win, injecting new impetus into the high-quality development of the industry.

With the joint support of new and old shareholders, Acchrom-Tech is committed to becoming the top domestic chromatography brand

Regarding this round of financing, Wang Lichun, the founder of Acchrom-Tech, said: "We are grateful for the high recognition of our development achievements from both new and existing shareholders. This also reflects their firm belief in our future potential. This financing will accelerate the in-depth expansion and system upgrade of domestic and international sales channels, and increase investment in the research and development of next-generation core products. We will integrate cutting-edge technologies and innovative concepts, continuously improve product performance, drive industry innovation through technological breakthroughs, and inject strong momentum into the global competitiveness of domestic chromatography technology."  

Bao Yida, the investment manager of Jingguo Rui Fund, stated: "Jingguo Rui has always been committed to serving the national strategy and addressing the 'bottleneck' problems in key areas. This investment in Acchrom-Tech is a direct result of our deep commitment to the strategic proposition of the autonomy of domestic scientific instruments. As the 'top-selling product' among scientific instruments, the localization of LC not only concerns the supply chain security of trillion-dollar industries such as medicine and environmental protection, but also serves as an indispensable 'infrastructure' in the technological competition among major countries. Acchrom-Tech has spent a decade honing its skills, establishing a fully autonomous technology loop covering hardware, software, and consumables, and has launched a new generation of networked chromatography software that meets international standards. This fully validates the investment logic that 'hard technology requires long-termism.' We value the company's dual-driven capabilities of 'technological breakthroughs and in-depth application scenarios,' and its breakthroughs in core scenarios are a vivid demonstration of Beijing's efforts to cultivate new productive forces."

Zhang Shengfeng, a senior investment manager at Beijing Industry Investment, said: "The Beijing High-tech and High-end Industry Fund managed by Beijing Industry Investment was jointly initiated by the Beijing Municipal Economic and Information Commission and the Municipal Finance Bureau. It closely follows the major national strategic directions and the key areas of Beijing's high-tech and high-end industries, and makes precise investments. LC instruments, as a core category of high-end analytical instruments, are indispensable "must-have" equipment in the fields of biomedicine, food safety, scientific research, and industry. Due to the high technical barriers of key components and software systems, the domestic market has long relied on imports. Acchrom-Tech, as a practitioner of independent research and development of domestic LC instruments, has been committed to strengthening its independent core component capabilities and continuously promoting the leap of domestic instruments from "usable" to "user-friendly". It has achieved remarkable achievements in technological breakthroughs, market expansion, and ecosystem construction. We are optimistic about Acchrom-Tech's continuous technological iteration and ecosystem integration capabilities, and look forward to it building brand power with high cost performance and high-quality services as the driving force, and contributing more to the development of China's high-end instrument industry."  

Li Wei, a partner of Jiaqiao Capital, said: "Jiaqiao Capital holds the vision of 'building a bridge between capital and industry', firmly believes that advanced manufacturing is the cornerstone of national development, and is resolutely laying out investments in the intelligent manufacturing industry chain. Domestic LC instruments and their compliant data management systems have achieved key technological breakthroughs, reaching or surpassing the performance, functionality, and data security levels of similar imported products, and are fully capable of replacing imported products. Acchrom-Tech is one of the few domestic manufacturers with an integrated development system of independent software, hardware, and chromatographic separation materials. It has achieved extensive business coverage among various customers. In the future, Acchrom-Tech  has the opportunity to expand from LC as a business entry point to a broader scientific instrument platform."  

Wang Keshu, a partner of Changhai Capital, stated: "LC is not only a tool for life sciences but also a key and 'entry point' in the scientific instrument race among major countries. Thanks to long-term R&D and market accumulation, Acchrom-Tech  has maintained a continuous three-year high growth rate in the volatile market environment. We believe that the company can continuously iterate its product technology, seize market opportunities, and enable a wide range of customers to use domestic LC products with confidence and peace of mind."