Funds News
- U.S. VC firm opens fund to tap China's fast growth sectors
Date: 25-Apr-2007 Sources: (Xinhua Online)
Klener Perkins Caufield & Byers, a U.S. venture capital firm which invested in Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc, opened a fund in China to tap fast-growing industries in the world's fourth-largest economy.
The 360 million U.S. dollars fund, its first outside the United States, will invest in companies in the technology, Internet, media and wireless communications, consumer products, healthcare and greentech sectors, Kleiner Perkins said in a statement yesterday.
Kleiner Perkins hired Joe Zhou, formerly with Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund, and three partners from TDF Capital -- a Shanghai-based venture capital firm which backs IT firms including Baidu.com, Alibaba.com and Focus Media -- to run operations in the country.
'Our partners' experience in China will be a significant advantage to our U.S. investment perspective and U.S. ventures in this increasingly global market,' said Kleiner Perkins partner Ted Schlein.
'On a global scale, the pace of innovation is increasing and China is helping lead the way.'
Founded in 1972, the U.S.-based VC has backed 475 firms including Amazon.com, Netscape and Sun Microsystems, with more than 150 of them going public. The firm in 1999 jointly invested 25 million U.S. dollars with Sequoia Capital in Google and parlayed the investment into holdings valuing billions of dollars after the popular search engine got listed in 2004.
China's blistering economic growth and sizzling stock market has attracted overseas funds to hot sectors such as IT and real estate.
ING Group NV said in December that it has raised 350 million U.S. dollars to invest in urban mainland property despite the central government's austerity measures.
The ING Real Estate China Opportunity Fund has attracted individual and institutional investors from Asia, Australia, Europe, Middle East and the United States.
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