Congrats to James Mi on VC of the Year! (and what a year it's been, and not over yet!)

November 9, 2020

www.silicondragonventures.com

FEATURED EVENT

Silicon Dragon 2021

Outlook

Nov. 3-4

Silicon Dragon Names

James Mi

VC of the Year 2020!

What is the New Norm for VC and Tech?

Key Takeaways

James Mi, Lightspeed China

Jeff Chi, Vickers Venture

Olivia Wang, ZhenFund

Duncan Chiu, Radiant Capital

Edith Yeung, Race Capital

Michael Yang, HKEX

Irene Chu, KPMG

Charles Ng, InvestHK

Kamran Elahian, Global Catalyst

DEALS, FUNDS, IPOs

Self-driving startup Pony.ai picks up $267 million at a $5.3 billion + valuation. A fund run by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board led the investment. Pony.ai, based in California and the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, has been testing autonomous cars on the roads.

A Chinese rival to TikTok, short-video and live streaming app Kuaishou has filed for an IPO. Founded by alums of Google and H-P and backed by Tencent, Baidu, DCM and Sequoia, Kuaishou is looking to raise about $5 billion in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Bytedance (the maker of TikTok and the Chinese version Duoyin) is seeking a pre-IPO round of $2 billion at a staggering valuation of $180 billion. Bytedance already was ranked as the most valuable venture-backed startup.

And, Bytedance is expanding into the e-book business by pumping $170 million into e-book reader Zhangyue.

SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 leads $180 million round in Chinese edtech startup VIPThink.

China private-equity powerhouse Hony Capital (backer of WeWork) closes maiden venture capital fund, raising $130 million in 4 months, with some from US investors.

Accel leads $4.2 million seed deal in sales intelligence platform Slintel, along with Sequoia Capital India.

IDG Capital-backed edtech platform Yuanfudao has landed $2.2 billion in funding, bringing the company’s valuation to $15.5 billion and surpassing Byju’s as the most valuable edtech company in the world.

NOTABLE

A fleet of autonomous delivery robots at Zhejiang University gets into formation to make Singles Day (11.11) package deliveries. The future of e-commerce is already here in China.

Bloomberg Beta's Roy Bahat, the Silicon Valley VC who decamped to Wisconsin to lead a get out the vote parade.