SPINNING OUT A NEW VC FUND
IN THE YEAR OF THE DOG
The trend of venture capitalists spinning out
their own funds continues as former Gobi Ventures vice president Victor Chua teams up with Darren Chua to form a new venture capital fund, Vynn Capital, focused on Southeast Asia and going after a $40 million close. Gobi has inked several successful deals in the region since opening there a few years ago from its China base. Chua said the strategic-value focused VC firm is now live to work with families and corporates as well as entrepreneurs who are looking to create more synergistic value and build the ecosystem together.
China co-working market continues to be red hot, as China's co-working space giant
Ucommune secures $17.4 million in new funding, barely two months after it raised $47 million in a Series C funding round, also led by the same M&A fund,
Qianhai Wutong. The startup is backed by renowned investors such as
Sequoia Capital, Zhen Fund, Noah Wealth Management and
Sinovation Ventures. Its valuation was estimated to be $1.3 billion after the Series C round as of December 2017.
Interestingly, the same M&A fund backed China's largest co-working space operator
UrWork (rebranded as UCommune) in fund raising of $45 million late last year.
DataVisor, a provider of fraud detection solutions using machine learning, snapped up a
$40 million Series C round of financing led by
Sequoia China, with participation from existing investors N
ew Enterprise Associates and
GSR Ventures.
Rock Wang, managing director at
Sequoia China, will join DataVisor's board of directors. With this new round of financing, the Silicon Valley based startup with offices in Beijing and Shanghai plans to expand its global footprint in the fraud detection and prevention market, which is estimated to reach $41.6 billion by year 2022,
according to research firm MarketsandMarkets.
Yinglian Xie, CEO and co-founder of
DataVisor, called Sequoia China an ideal partner to help scale the business as it improves its technology and expands globally in the fraud fight.
New funding of $2.5 billion goes to the logistics unit of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, the closest rival to Alibaba. The deal was led by investment firms Hillhouse Capital Group and Sequoia Capital China, plus internet giant Tencent as well as several state-owned companies. The money is being earmarked to further develop drone deliveries and robotic assists.
Chinese search leader Baidu is making plans to take its video streaming platform iQiyi public in New York sometime soon.
And, Alibaba is taking a 33 percent stake in its online payment affiliate Ant Financial in a deal that could lead to a public listing of the unit, which was spun off from Alibaba in 2014 as a separate entity.
NOTEWORTHY
10 Chinese unicorns that are on track to conquer markets.
Silicon Dragon
has been tracking these already but thought you might like to see this list from
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Q&A website
Zhihu
Chinese Education in English
VIPKid
China's AirBNB
Tujia
Deep learning chip
Cambricon
Music streaming service
NetEase
Group buys site
Meituan-Dianping
Electric vehicle maker
Nio
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SenseTime
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Mogujie
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