Recently, Tsingtao CAS Guosheng Power Technology Co., Ltd.(CASGS) announced the completion of its CNY 600 million Series C funding round. This round was co-led by Sequoia China and Jiantou Investment, with participation from renowned investment institutions including Walden International, China Merchants Capital, Guangzhou Industrial Investment, and Chengdu Sci-Tech Innovation Investment Group. Existing shareholders such as CASVC Investment, Guoke Investment, and Shandong New Growth Drivers continued to increase their stakes.
This funding round comes merely about six months after the closing of its Series B round. Within this half-year period, CASGS has secured a total of CNY 800 million in new equity financing. Behind this high-frequency financing, "national team" capital continues to increase its stakes, and the process of domestic substitution for gas turbines is clearly accelerating.
Championing Domestic Gas Turbine Technology
A gas turbine is a thermodynamic rotary machine that converts the chemical energy of fuel into mechanical energy. Its core principle involves a compressor drawing in and compressing air, which then enters the combustion chamber to mix and burn with fuel. The resulting high-temperature, high-pressure gas drives the turbine to rotate and perform work. Essentially, it is an "engine that burns gas." Due to the need for high-precision processing equipment, strict quality control, and profound R&D capabilities in its research, development, and manufacturing, it has always been hailed as the "pearl on the crown" of the equipment manufacturing industry.
Classified by power output, gas turbines can be broadly divided into micro gas turbines, light gas turbines, and heavy gas turbines.
The 20-50MW power segment is known in the industry as the "golden displacement." Unlike micro gas turbines (hundreds of kilowatts and below), which are only sufficient for backup power and small-scale distributed energy scenarios, and unlike heavy gas turbines (above 50MW), which focus on large-scale main power plants and natural gas pipeline booster stations, this segment perfectly hits the critical needs of rigid demand scenarios such as distributed power generation, compression drive for the West-to-East Gas Pipeline, offshore oil and gas platforms, and power systems for large ships.
For the past few decades, this market has been essentially monopolized by GE, Siemens, and Pratt & Whitney. CASGS is precisely targeting this field.
Founded in 2017, CASGS was initiated and established by the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in conjunction with Qingdao local state-owned capital. The "Three-Dimensional Flow Theory of Turbomachinery" pioneered by Wu Zhonghua, the founder of the institute, laid the foundation for the modern aerodynamic design system of gas turbines. CASGS inherited this technological heritage from the very beginning.
The TG30 series by CASGS is the first domestically developed 30MW-class light gas turbine to pass appraisal and enter mass production and sales in China. This product has achieved100% independent design and 100% domestic manufacturing, with a primary power generation efficiency of 39.2% and a combined cycle efficiency exceeding 70%. This efficiency figure is 3 percentage points higher than the current mainstream 36%, making it comparable to the level of international oligopolies.
Currently, the TG30 has completed an 8,000-hour industrial operational assessment at the Kongquehe Compressor Station of the West-to-East Gas Pipeline under PipeChina. It has also achieved stable grid-connected operation at the Henan Liyuan Coke Oven Gas Power Generation Project. In 2025, it secured an order for a natural gas distributed power station in Turkey and was delivered for operational power generation in the same year, marking the first overseas commercial project for a domestic 30MW gas turbine.
In February 2026, the TG30 was selected for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's First Set of Major Technical Equipment Insurance Compensation Project, making CASGS the only selected enterprise in Qingdao.
Third-party data shows that the domestic market share of 30MW-class light gas turbines has risen from about 8% in 2023 to approximately 28% in 2025, with CASGS being the main force behind this wave of substitution.
The "National Team" Deepens Its Commitment
From its first round of financing in 2022 to date, CASGS's financing pace has undergone a clear three-step leap.
In December 2022, the company completed its first round of financing, introducing investment institutions such as CAS Star and CCB Beijing, embarking on the path of capitalization.
In April 2023, Zhongke Yucheng Investment followed up, increasing the company's registered capital to approximately CNY 478 million. Financing in this stage was more like "seed money" during the technology validation period, with investors primarily consisting of sci-tech innovation funds, corresponding to the early stage when the TG30 was still in the industrial assessment phase.
The real acceleration began in 2025. In March 2025, Guoke Investment became a new investor, and the company's registered capital increased to CNY 502 million. Shortly after in May, the company initiated a capital increase plan of about CNY 300 million to reserve resources for subsequent mass production. In September 2025, the company launched a new CNY 200 million listed offering. By the end of the year, CNY 120 million had been successfully raised. To fill the remaining funding gap of CNY 80 million, the company launched the listing procedure again.
In March 2026, the CNY 200 million Series B funding round officially closed. The lead investor was the Shandong Green and Low-Carbon High-Quality Development Pilot Zone Construction Guidance Fund, with joint investments from CDB Technology Venture Capital Co., Ltd. and Huayu (Qingdao) Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrading Private Equity Investment Fund.
The three investors each carry significant weight: the provincial guidance fund has been positioned as "patient capital" since its inception, focusing on cultivating key projects in Shandong's green and low-carbon industries; CDB Technology Venture Capital is an investment platform under the China Development Bank focusing on cutting-edge technology, excelling in accompanying enterprises through the long cycles of R&D and industrialization; and the Huayu Fund is backed by CRRC, a leading enterprise in the high-end manufacturing field, and its entry is expected to bring deep industrial resource synergies in materials, processes, and high-end manufacturing.
By June 2026, just three months after the Series B round closed, the company launched the listing for its CNY 600 million Series C funding round.
The density of CASGS's recent financing pace is rare in the domestic high-end equipment track. However, when combined with its revenue, everything makes sense.
In 2023, CASGS's revenue was CNY 4.58 million, with a net loss of CNY 28.92 million; in 2024, revenue was CNY 5.74 million, with a loss of CNY 28.33 million; in 2025, revenue surged to CNY 91.9 million. It increased 16 times within a year, while the net loss expanded to CNY 72.54 million. As of the end of 2025, the net assets stood at CNY 830 million.
The surge in revenue came from the TG30 securing orders for the sale of 6 complete units and the maintenance of 3 complete units in 2025. The total order value reached CNY 460 million, and the annual revenue broke through the CNY 100 million mark.
However, after breaking through from 0 to 1 in domestic high-end equipment, the ramp-up period from 1 to 10 often faces a realistic problem: R&D amortization remains heavy, the production line has just been set up, supply chain costs have not yet been diluted, and market development and channel deployment require upfront investment. At this point, it is possible that the more orders there are, the more losses are incurred.
In 2025, the TG30 completed its industrial assessment and entered mass production and sales, with orders leaping from single digits to double digits. The enterprise is precisely in the critical stage from the "technology validation period" to the "commercialization ramp-up period." At this time, capital needs grow rapidly, and intensive financing is an inevitable action for this stage.
How to Spend the CNY 600 Million
According to disclosures by CASGS, this round of financing will be primarily applied to product R&D, production and manufacturing, market development, and daily operations.
In terms of product R&D, the company will tackle the complete sets of 35MW gas turbines and 30MW low-emission gas turbines. The former aims to raise the power ceiling from 30MW to 35MW, further broadening application scenarios; the latter directly targets increasingly stringent emission regulations, preparing for entry into high-standard markets such as Europe and the US. At the same time, it will master the core technology of gas turbine maintenance and consolidate components such as power turbines, control systems, and complete units—which were previously partially outsourced or borrowed from institute achievements—into self-developed supporting systems. Essentially, this is about completing the full life-cycle service capability.
In terms of production and manufacturing, the funds will be used to meet the relevant needs for the production of 20 units, such as settling accounts payable for delivered products, paying advance payments for newly produced components, and coordinating the entire process of capital investment for raw material procurement, complete unit production and assembly, and performance testing.
In terms of market development, the company will build and improve domestic and overseas marketing channels and market service networks, deepen relationships with existing customers, expand high-quality cooperative resources, and carry out brand promotion and business marketing.
In terms of daily operations, the funds will supplement working capital, ensure human resources compensation and office expenses, and simultaneously recruit production and assembly teams in batches in combination with the production plan for 20 units, as well as introduce and absorb core R&D and technical talents in the industry.
Standing Before the Global Window
The global gas turbine market is in a high-prosperity cycle. In 2025, the global market size for gas turbines was approximately USD 24-30 billion, and it is expected to increase to USD 61.1 billion by 2035.
The backlogs of the three giants—GE, Siemens, and Mitsubishi—have been scheduled for production up to 2028-2030, with capacity at full load. The surge in power demand brought by AI computing expansion, coupled with the global energy transition's need for flexible peak-shaving power sources, has opened a rare window for gas turbines, a field long dominated by European and American giants, to China.
CASGS is standing right before this window. The TG30 has completed industrial assessments in domestic scenarios such as the West-to-East Gas Pipeline and coke oven gas power generation. The Turkey project has opened the first door to the overseas market, and its selection for the MIIT's First Set Insurance Compensation Project means that the product's reliability and commercial maturity have been recognized at the national level. The entry ticket has been obtained; what comes next is a race in delivery speed.
After the CNY 600 million is in place, the company's net assets will be further enriched from CNY 830 million, providing sufficient financial support for the mass production and delivery of the TG30, the R&D of the 35MW model, and the expansion of overseas channels. More importantly, this funding will help the company convert overseas intentional orders currently under negotiation into signed orders, and expand from a single project point in Turkey into a broader market.
In addition, with CASGS as the chain leader, the Qingdao Gas Turbine Collaborative Innovation Center has attracted 6 core supporting enterprises to settle in, and cultivated 16 local Shandong enterprises to become suppliers. An industrial cluster driven by the technology source and supported by local matching is taking shape in the West Coast New Area of Qingdao. Under the effect of industrial clustering, supply chain costs are expected to be gradually diluted, and the profitability turning point is already in sight.
The gas turbine track is ushering in the "China Moment." With CNY 600 million in funding secured, the industrial cluster gaining momentum, and the overseas market breaking the ice, a seat at the global table awaits. CASGS is entering the game.
As a private equity fund company focusing on investing in China's cutting-edge technology, Zhongke Yucheng Investment takes investing in leaders, boutique projects, and excellence as its core philosophy. With cutting-edge technology projects from institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as its core targets, and pursuing the ultimate "project exit rate" and "return on investment," it is committed to becoming a benchmark institution in the field of cutting-edge technology investment, co-creating value with outstanding scientists, entrepreneurs, and investors.