Featured Event
AI Superpowers
Sept. 28 evening
St. Francis Yacht Club
San Francisco
for best pricing
(your
ticket includes new AI Superpowers book,
out just in time
for our event!)
Fireside chat
with
Author & VC
Kai-Fu Lee,
Sinovation Ventures
Panel of
leading VCs investing
in AI
+
Network reception
overlooking the Bay
 ...
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Silicon Dragon
Annual Awards
Top VC, Founder, Deal and Startup
Hong Kong
Nov. 15, 5-9pm
Thanks to our sponsors
Morrison & Foerster
KPMG
PARTNER EVENT
Competing and
Collaborating
with an
Innovative China
Save the Date!
Sept. 27
CKGSB Program
at University Club
New York City
Speaking
appearances
Overseas Technology
Entrepreneurs Contest
Beijing
August 11
Keynote Talk
Cyberport Venture Forum
Hong Kong
November 8
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Silicon Dragon Shanghai 2018
Dominic Penaloza, WeWork with Bruno Bensaid, Shanghaivest at the soon-to-be renamed nakedHub
WeWork is figuring out a China model that works for expanding its brand into the highly competitive Chinese co-working market.
It's an acquisition of a local brand, for starters. It's also taking an idea from China and adapting it to its WeWork locations in China. This comes at a time when American brands face increasing obstacles in tackling the China market.
WeWork entered China in 2016 and made its first acquisition in the market, buying out local rival, nakedHub, for $400 million in April 2018. Now,
WeWork is integrating nakedHub into its own operations in China and taking some money-making cues from the Shanghai-based co-working outfit.
Read
Forbes,
VC
Slowdown In China: Don't Panic
Venture capital funding may be slowing in China but no reason for panic -- at least if you're good.
Top tier funds have no problem raising successive funds, and mega ones at that. Consider the $1 billion range funds recently raised by
Qiming Venture Partners and
GGV Capital. Or the $8 billion brought in by
Sequoia Capital China.
Yes, consolidation is underway in the venture business in China. Some Silicon Valley firms including
NEA and
Kleiner Perkins have stopped their once proactive investing stance in Chinese tech startups. Partners from these firms have formed their own specialized funds such as
Long Hill Capital and
China Creation Ventures.
If you're a quality founder, you might have some luck, especially if you stick to
artificial intelligence or live streaming combined with social commerce. These sorts of innovations have caught the eye of astute venture investor
Helen Wong of
Qiming Ventures, who spoke at a recent
Silicon Dragon
event in Shanghai.
Destination tour booking service Klook, a Hong Kong based startup highlighted by Silicon Dragon early on, has raised $200 million in Series D funding. Investors include repeat backers Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners and Goldman Sachs as well as newcomers OurCrowd from Israel, TCV and Boyu Capital. Klook has raised a total of $300 million.
See Silicon Dragon video of Klook co-founder Eric Gnock Fah from our Silicon Dragon Hong Kong Awards event in 2016:
Klook on Stage!
Nexus Venture Partners has led a $8 million, Series A investment in Bangalore-based Observe.AI, a platform for call agents to improve customer satisfaction with deep learning prompts to generate better answers. Sounds good!
Participants were YCombinator and Emergent Ventures.
In another China to Israel deal, Fosun International has made a $5 million strategic investment in Israeli fintech company The Floor.
As we've previously reported, China electric vehicle maker NIO is one to watch. It's already known as a potential Tesla killer -- Tesla has crazy high tariffs in China! And now NIO is getting ready to go public and raise $1.8 billion. NIO counts Tencent as its main backer along with Baidu, Sequoia Capital and Hillhouse Capital. It's raised well past $1.6 billion.
FUNDS
Matrix Partners India has bagged $300 million for its third Indian fund. Matrix just funded a health drink startup @ME in Bangalore that's going after the women's market.
Crazy Rich Asians His #1 at the Box Office
Friends in the Silicon Dragon community (Christine Lu, Lynn Liou and others) have been buying
out theatres in Los Angeles and San Francisco, popcorn included! just to make sure this film rocks. It does!
Glad to note that producer John Penotti of Ivanhoe Pictures previewed the movie's release at our Silicon Dragon event in LA, July 25. He said it took 2-3 years to get a distributor. The wait was worth it!
The flick debuts in Singapore (site of the movie) this Tuesday evening, so more to come!
This is the first successful Asian film in the U.S. since The Joy Luck Club, produced by Janet Yang (who we were lucky enough to also have on stage in LA!)
Next: September 28 in San Francisco
November 15 in Hong Kong
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