How to Make Capital More Patient

In the past two years, patient capital has become a buzzword. After the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held in April 2024 proposed that “we should actively develop venture capital and strengthen patient capital,” patient capital has been mentioned on many important occasions. The Central Economic Work Conference proposed to improve the multi-level financial service system, strengthen patient capital, and make greater efforts to attract social capital to participate in venture investment. So, what is patient capital? Why can capital have “patience”? Why do we need patient capital even more at this stage? As the name suggests, patient capital is a kind of capital that focuses on long-term investment and has a higher tolerance for risk. It is easily confused with long-term capital, but the two concepts are both related and different. The latter mainly emphasizes the term of use of capital, while the former not only includes the characteristic of long-term holding but also emphasizes a higher tolerance for risk, endurance of short-term market fluctuations, and long-term confidence. Patience is a value choice about long-termism, which contains the dialectics of time.

这两年，耐心资本成为热词。继2024年4月召开的中央政治局会议提出“要积极发展风险投资，壮大耐心资本”后，耐心资本又在多个重要场合被提及。中央经济工作会议提出，健全多层次金融服务体系，壮大耐心资本，更大力度吸引社会资本参与创业投资。那么，什么是耐心资本？资本为什么可以有“耐心”？现阶段我们为什么更加需要耐心资本？顾名思义，耐心资本是一种专注于长期投资并对风险有较高承受力的资本，其与长期资本是两个容易被混淆的概念，二者既有联系又有区别，后者主要强调资本的使用期限，而前者不仅包含长期持有的特点，还强调对风险的较高承受力、对市场短期波动的忍耐和长期的信心。耐心，是关于长期主义的价值选择，其中蕴含着时间的辩证法。

Some people believe that capital is profit-seeking, that capital’s short-term profit-seeking for quick money is instinctive, and therefore there is no real patient capital. Opposing capital’s profit-seeking with maintaining patience is in fact a misunderstanding. Admittedly, patient capital is first of all capital, and it does have the general characteristics of profit-seeking, mobility, and risk, but the law of capital returns determines that it will also maintain an outlook for longer-term expectations and have a higher tolerance for risk. Of course, patient capital can only form under certain conditions. Some people think that a cultural tradition of long-term thinking is necessary; others believe that a long-term stable inflation environment and stable micro-expectations are needed. In fact, the “patience” of capital mainly comes from two sources: one is a sense of long-term goals derived from insight into the process and riskiness from technological innovation to industrial transformation; the other is the establishment of an “community” between investors and innovative enterprises. This type of ultra-long-term capital that invests in “relationships” enables some capital to break free from the “quick in, quick out” profit-seeking model and enter the patient capital camp, accompanying enterprises to cross the “valley of death” of innovation.

有人认为，资本是逐利的，资本短期逐利挣快钱是本能，因此并没有真正的耐心资本。将资本逐利与保持耐心对立起来，这事实上是一种误解。固然，耐心资本首先是资本，确实有逐利性、运动性、风险性的一般特征，但是资本回报的规律决定了其也会对较长期限的预期保持展望且对风险有较高承受力。当然，耐心资本能够形成，也是有一定条件的。对此，有人认为必须要有长期思维的文化传统，有人认为需要有长期稳定的通胀环境与稳定的微观预期。其实，资本的“耐心”，主要来源于两个方面：一个是对科技创新到产业变革的过程性、风险性的洞悉所带来的一种长期目标感；另一个是投资者与创新企业“共同体”的建立，这种投资于“关系”的超长期资本，使一部分资本可以摆脱“快进快出”的逐利模式，进入耐心资本阵营，陪伴企业跨越创新的“死亡之谷”。

The “valley of death” phenomenon in technological innovation is common in innovation activities across countries. From basic principle innovation to technology R&D, then to pilot testing, and finally to marketization, technological innovation is a long and highly uncertain process that requires capital as a long-term “partner” to continuously provide financial support. The investment philosophy of patient capital is highly consistent with the inherent laws of technological innovation. Patient capital possesses the strategic determination to exclude short-term disturbances, can provide long-term funding sources for promoting original and disruptive early-stage technological innovation activities “from 0 to 1” and their movement toward market application, and can more precisely match the needs of technological innovation in terms of time, space, and the full lifecycle development of enterprises, even participating in the value creation process. Therefore, patient capital is also called “a friend of time” and becomes an intimate partner accompanying the development of “hard tech.” We see that some disruptive innovations abroad are often accompanied by the intervention of early-stage capital and achieve long-term companionship throughout their lifecycle.

科技创新的“死亡之谷”现象，普遍存在于各国创新活动中。科技创新从原理创新到技术研发再到中试验证，最后实现市场化，是一个漫长且充满不确定性的过程，需要资本作为长跑“搭档”，持续不断地提供资金支持。耐心资本的投资理念与科技创新的内在规律高度契合。耐心资本具备排除短期扰动的战略定力，可以为推动“从0到1”的原创性、颠覆性的早期科技创新活动以及走向市场化应用提供长期资金来源，能够更精准匹配科技创新在时间、空间、企业全生命周期发展的需求，甚至参与价值创造过程。因此，耐心资本也被称为“时间的朋友”，成为陪伴“硬科技”发展的亲密伙伴。我们看到，国外一些颠覆式创新往往都伴随着早期资本的介入并在其生命周期中实现了长期陪伴。

Currently, the development of China’s real economy is accelerating its shift from factor-driven to innovation-driven, and it will rely more on the leadership and impetus of new quality productive forces. The development of new quality productive forces must be achieved through innovation, including scientific and technological innovation, institutional innovation, management innovation, etc., but the core is scientific and technological innovation. Only when original and disruptive scientific and technological innovation achievements emerge in abundance can new quality productive forces achieve universal development. To solve the problem of “lack of long money” and “no rice to cook” in scientific and technological innovation, to cultivate and strengthen new quality productive forces, and to achieve high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-strengthening, more patient capital is necessary.

当前，我国实体经济发展正在加快从要素驱动转向创新驱动，将更加依赖新质生产力的引领和带动。新质生产力的发展要靠创新来实现，包括科技创新、制度创新、管理创新等，但最核心的是科技创新。只有原创性、颠覆性科技创新成果竞相涌现，新质生产力才能实现普遍发展。解决好科技创新“缺长钱”和“无米下锅”的问题，培育壮大新质生产力，实现高水平科技自立自强，必须有更多的耐心资本。

Although China currently lacks patient capital, it does not lack the potential and foundation to strengthen patient capital. Of course, turning potential into reality and making patient capital move toward the “new” remains a long-term task and a systemic project.

尽管目前我国缺少耐心资本，但并不缺壮大耐心资本的潜力和基础。当然，要将潜力变为现实，让耐心资本向“新”而行，依然是一项长期任务、系统工程。

First, we must nourish patience with a predictable investment environment. The market environment has a guiding effect on capital flows, influencing people’s investment behavior patterns, values, and social norms. The “patience” of patient capital will not arise out of thin air; it requires a law-based, high-standard market environment. To this end, we must improve the social credit system and regulatory system, enhance market transparency, maintain market fairness, justice, and stability, ensure the continuity, stability, and predictability of policies, and cultivate a long-termism culture in the capital market.

首先，要用可预期的投资环境来滋养耐心。市场环境对资本流向具有导向作用，影响人们的投资行为方式、价值观念和社会规范。耐心资本的“耐心”不会凭空产生，需要有法治化、高标准的市场环境。为此，要健全社会信用体系和监管制度，提高市场透明度，维护市场的公平、公正和稳定，保持政策的连续性、稳定性、可预期性，培养资本市场的长期主义文化。

Second, we must attract patient capital with high-quality investment targets. Supply and demand are interdependent and mutually influential. Respecting the law of capital’s pursuit of maximizing investment value means having high-quality investment targets that can be held for the long term and protecting the motivation of capital to flow toward innovative technologies that can bring high returns. Therefore, we must play the “first-move advantage” in scientific and technological innovation well, adopt multiple measures to cultivate innovation entities, establish a matching mechanism between venture investment and innovation and entrepreneurship projects, and guide venture capital institutions to invest in high-quality projects that align with the national development direction and strategic orientation.

其次，要用优质的投资标的吸引耐心资本。供给和需求是相互依存、相互影响的。尊重资本追求投资价值最大化的运行规律，就是要有可以长期持有的优质投资对象，并保护资本流向那些能够带来高回报创新技术的动机。因此，要走好科技创新这步“先手棋”，多措并举培育创新主体，建立创业投资与创新创业项目的对接机制，引导创投机构投向符合国家发展方向和战略导向的优质项目。

Third, we must strengthen patient capital in the virtuous cycle of “technology-industry-finance.” Patient capital must not only accompany technological innovation but also strengthen itself in promoting the realization of a virtuous cycle of “technology-industry-finance.” In this process, we must not only invest capital into technological innovation but also ground R&D achievements in industry, promote the industrialization and commercialization of technological innovation achievements, achieve synergy between technological innovation and industrial innovation, thereby feeding back into the financial market, realizing the value return of patient capital’s long-term companionship, and thereby promoting a sustainable virtuous cycle among the three.

再者，要在“科技—产业—金融”良性循环中壮大耐心资本。耐心资本不仅要做到与科技创新相伴，更要在促进实现“科技—产业—金融”良性循环中不断壮大。在这一过程中，既要让资本投入到科技创新，还要将研发成果落脚到产业上，推动科技创新成果的产业化和商业化，实现科技创新与产业创新的协同，进而反哺金融市场，实现耐心资本长期陪伴的价值回报，从而促进三者可持续的良性循环。

Finally, to make more capital patient, we must give full play to the leading role of state-owned capital. State-owned assets and government investment funds have advantages such as capital intensity, stability, and long-term nature, naturally making them suitable to assume the role of patient capital and become the “ballast stone” of patient capital. We must improve the assessment mechanism from a full lifecycle perspective, set a reasonable error tolerance rate, and promote state-owned asset investment to become more responsible patient capital. At the same time, we must continuously optimize the support policies for the entire chain of “fundraising, investment, management, and exit” in venture investment, give full play to the role of the government’s “visible hand,” and guide and incentivize more social capital to invest early, invest small, and invest in hard tech.

最后，让更多资本有耐心，要发挥好国有资本的引领作用。国资及政府投资基金具有资金密集、稳定性和长期性等优势，天然适合承担耐心资本的角色，可以成为耐心资本的“压舱石”。要从全生命周期角度完善考核机制，设置合理的容错率，推动国资出资成为更有担当的耐心资本。同时，持续优化创业投资“募投管退”全链条的支持政策，发挥好政府“有形之手”的作用，引导和激励更多社会资本投早投小投硬科技。

(The author is a Special Research Fellow of the Beijing Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and an Associate Researcher at the Institute of Management, Beijing Academy of Social Sciences.)

（作者系北京市习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想研究中心特约研究员、北京市社会科学院管理研究所副研究员）

Online editor: Huihui

网络编辑：慧慧